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AN  [NTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 


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THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO 
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MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

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THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


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TlTLK-PxVGE  UF  THE  FiliST  i'OLlO,  1023 
The  first  collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's  Plays 
(From  the  copy  in  the  New  York  Public  Library) 


AN  INTKODUCTION  TO 
SHAKESPEARE 


BY 

H.  N.  MacCRACKEN,  Ph.D. 
F.  E.  PIERCE,  Ph.D. 

AND 

W.  H.  DURHAM,  Ph.D. 

OF  THE   DEPARTMENT  OF  ENGLISH    LITERATURE    IN 

THE   SHEFFIELD   SCIENTIFIC   SCHOOL   OF 

TALE   UNIVERSITY 


THE  MAGMILLAN  COMPANY 
1910 

All  rights  reserved 


Ck)PYEIGHT,   1910, 

By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  September,  1910, 

REPlACWa 

I 


NorfaootJ  ^re8B 

J.  B.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


A1/3Z 


PREFACE 

The  advances  made  in  Shakespearean  scholarship 
within  the  last  half-dozen  years  seem  to  justify  the 
writing  of  another  manual  for  school  and  college  use. 
The  studies  of  Wallace  in  the  life-records,  of  Louns- 
bury  in  the  history  of  editions,  of  Pollard  and  Greg 
in  early  quartos,  of  Lee  upon  the  First  Folio,  of  Al- 
bright and  others  upon  the  Elizabethan  Theater,  as 
well  as  valuable  monographs  on  individual  plays  have 
all  appeared  since  the  last  Shakespeare  manual  was 
prepared.  This  little  volume  aims  to  present  what 
may  be  necessary  for  the  majority  of  classes,  as  a 
background  upon  which  may  be  begun  the  study  and 
reading  of  the  plays.  Critical  comment  on  individual 
plays  has  been  added,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  stimu- 
late interest  in  other  plays  than  those  assigned  for 
study. 

Chapters  I,  VIII,  IX,  X,  and  XIII  are  the  work 
of  Professor  MacCracken ;  chapters  V,  VI,  VII,  XII, 
and  XIV  are  by  Professor  Pierce;  and  chapters  II, 
III,  IV,  and  XI  are  by  Dr.  Durham.  The  authors 
have,  however,  united  in  the  criticism  and  the  revision 
of  every  chapter. 


M656027 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAOB 

An  Outline  of  Shakespeare's  Life       ...        1 

CHAPTER  II 
English  Drama  before  Shakespeare    .        .        .20 

CHAPTER  ni 
The  Elizabethan  Theater 35 

CHAPTER  IV 
Elizabethan  London 51 

CHAPTER  V 
Shakespeare's  Nondramatic  Works       ...      60 

CHAPTER  VI 
The  Sequence  of  Shakespeare's  Plays         .        .      73 

CHAPTER  VII 
Shakespeare's  Development  as  a  Dramatist      .      85 

CHAPTER  VIII 

The  Chief  Sources  of  Shakespeare's  Plays       .    105 
vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  IX 
How  Shakespeare  got  into  Print  .        ,        .    113 

CHAPTER  X 

The  Plays  of  the  First  Period  —  Imitation  and 

Experiment 131 

CHAPTER   XI 

The  Plays  of  the  Second  Period  —  Comedy  and 

History 153 

CHAPTER  XII 
The  Plays  of  the  Third  Period  —  Tragedy       .     172 

CHAPTER  XIII 
The  Plays  of  the  Fourth  Period  —  Romance    .     196 

CHAPTER  XIV 

Some    Famous   Mistakes    and    Delusions    about 

Shakespeare 210 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 


I 


AN   INTEODUCTION   TO 
SHAKESPEARE 

CHAPTER  I 


AN   OUTLINE    OF   SHAKESPEARE'S    LIFE 

Our  Knowledge  of  Shakespeare.  —  No  one  in  Shake- 
speare's day  seems  to  have  been  interested  in  learning 
about  the  private  lives  of  the  dramatists.  The  pro- 
fession of  play  writing  had  scarcely  begun  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  that  of  play  acting,  and  the  times 
were  not  wholly  gone  by  when  all  actors  had  been 
classed  in  public  estimation  as  vagabonds.  While  the 
London  citizens  were  constant  theatergoers,  and  im- 
mensely proud  of  their  fine  plays,  they  were  content 
to  learn  of  the  writers  of  plays  merely  from  town 
gossip,  which  passed  from  lip  to  lip  and  found  no 
resting  place  in  memoirs.  There  were  other  lives 
which  made  far  more  exciting  reading.  English  sea- 
men were  penetrating  every  ocean,  and  bringing  back 
wonderful  tales.  English  soldiers  were  aiding  the 
Dutch  nation  towards  freedom,  and  coming  back  full 
of  stories  of  heroic  deeds.  At  home  great  political, 
religious,  and  scientific  movements  engaged  the  atten- 
tion of  the  more  serious  readers  and  thinkers.  It  is 
not  strange,  therefore,  that  the  writers  of  plays,  whose 

B  1 


2       AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

most  exciting  incidents  were  tavern  brawls  or  im- 
prisonment for  rash  satire  of  the  government,  found 
no  biographer.  After  Shakespeare's  death,  moreover, 
the  theater  rapidly  fell  into  disrepute,  and  many  a 
good  story  of  the  playhouse  fell  under  the  ban  of 
polite  conversation,  and  was  lost. 

Under  such  conditions  we  cannot  wonder  that  we 
know  so  little  of  Shakespeare,  and  that  we  must  go 
to  town  records,  cases  at  law,  and  book  registers  for 
our  knowledge.  Thanks  to  the  diligence  of  modern 
scholars,  however,  we  know  much  more  of  Shakespeare 
than  of  most  of  his  fellow-actors  and  playwrights.  The 
life  of  Christopher  Marlowe,  Shakespeare's  great  pred- 
ecessor, is  almost  unknown ;  and  of  John  Fletcher, 
Shakespeare's  great  contemporary  and  successor,  it  is 
not  even  known  whether  he  was  married,  or  when  he 
began  to  write  plays.  Yet  his  father  was  Bishop  of 
London,  and  in  high  favor  with  Queen  Elizabeth.  We 
ought  rather  to  wonder  at  the  good  fortune  which  has 
preserved  for  us,  however  scanty  in  details  or  lack- 
ing in  the  authority  of  its  traditions,  a  continuous  rec- 
ord of  the  life  of  William  Shakespeare  from  birth  to 
death. 

Stratford.  —  The  notice  of  baptism  on  April  26,  1564, 
of  William,  son  of  John  Shakespeare,  appears  in  the 
church  records  of  Stratford-on-Avon  in  Warwickshire. 
Stratford  was  then  a  market  town  of  about  fifteen 
hundred  souls.  Under  Stratford  Market  Cross  the 
farmers  of  northern  Warwickshire  and  of  the  near- 
lying  portions  of  Worcestershire,  Gloucestershire,  and 
Oxfordshire  carried  on  a  brisk  trade  with  the  thrifty 
townspeople.     The  citizens  were  accustomed  to  boast 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE        3 

of  their  beautiful  church  by  the  river,  and  of  the  fine 
Guildhall,  where  sometimes  plays  were  given  by  trav- 
eling companies.  Many  of  their  gable-roofed  houses 
of  timber,  or  timber  and  plaster,  are  still  to  be  found 
on  the  pleasant  old  streets.  The  river  Avon  winds 
round  the  town  in  a  broad  reach  under  the  many-arched 
bridge  to  the  ancient  church.  Beyond  it  the  rich 
pasture  land  rises  up  to  green  wooded  hills.  Not  far 
away  is  the  famous  Warwick  Castle,  and  a  little  be- 
yond it  Kenilworth,  where  Queen  Elizabeth  was  en- 
tertained by  the  Earl  of  Leicester  with  great  festivi- 
ties in  1575.  Coventry  and  Rugby  are  the  nearest 
towus. 

Birth  and  Parentage.  —  The  record  of  baptism  of 
April  26,  1564,  is  the  only  evidence  we  possess  of  the 
date  of  Shakespeare's  birth.  It  is  probable  that  the 
child  was  baptized  when  only  two  or  three  days  old. 
The  poet's  tomb  states  that  Shakespeare  was  in  his 
fifty-second  year  when  he  died,  April  23,  1616.  Ac- 
cepting this  as  strictly  true,  we  cannot  place  the  poet's 
birthday  earlier  than  April  23,  1564.  There  is  a  tra- 
dition, with  no  authority,  that  the  poet  died  upon  his 
birthday. 

John  Shakespeare,  the  poet's  father,  sold  the  prod- 
ucts of  near-by  farms  to  his  fellow-townsmen.  He  is 
sometimes  described  as  a  glover,  sometimes  as  a 
butcher  ;  very  likely  he  was  both.  A  single  reference, 
half  a  century  later  than  his  day,  preserves  for  us  a 
picture  of  John  Shakespeare.  The  note  reads  :  "  He 
[William  Shakespeare]  was  a  glover's  son.  Sir  John 
Mennes  saw  once  his  old  father  in  his  shop,  a  merry- 
cheekt  old  man,  that  said,  *  Will  was  a  good  honest 


4       AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

fellow,  but  lie  durst  liave  crackt  a  jesst  with,  him  att 
any  time/  '^  ^ 

John  Shakespeare's  father,  Richard  Shakespeare, 
was  a  tenant  farmer,  who  was  in  1550  renting  his  little 
farm  at  Snitterfield,  four  miles  north  of  Stratford, 
from  another  farmer,  Robert  Arden  of  Wilmcote. 
John  Shakespeare  married  Mary  Arden,  the  daughter 
of  his  father's  rich  landlord,  probably  in  1557.  He 
had  for  over  five  years  been  a  middleman  at  Stratford, 
dealing  in  the  produce  of  his  father's  farm  and  other 
farms  in  the  neighborhood.  In  April,  1552,  we  first 
hear  of  him  in  Stratford  records,  though  only  as  being 
fined  a  shilling  for  not  keeping  his  yard  clean.  Be- 
tween 1557  and  1561  he  rose  to  be  ale  tester  (in- 
spector of  bread  and  malt),  burgess  (petty  constable), 
affeeror  (adjuster  of  fines),  and  finally  city  chamber- 
lain (treasurer). 

Eight  children  were  born  to  him,  the  two  eldest, 
both  daughters,  dying  in  infancy.  William  Shake- 
speare was  the  third  child,  and  eldest  of  those  who 
reached  maturity.  During  his  childhood  his  father 
was  probably  in  comfortable  circumstances,  but  not 
long  before  the  son  left  Stratford  for  London,  John 
Shakespeare  was  practically  a  bankrupt,  and  had  lost 
by  mortgage  farms  in  Snitterfield  and  Ashbies,  near 
by,  inherited  in  1556  by  his  wife. 

Education.  —  William  Shakespeare  probably  went 
to  the  Stratford  Grammar  School,  where  he  and  his 

iThis  reference  was  discovered  among  the  Plume  Mss.  (1657- 
1663)  of  Maldon,  Essex,  by  Dr.  Andrew  Clark,  in  October,  1904.  Sir 
John  Mennes  was,  however,  not  a  contemporary  of  John  Shake- 
speare, but  doubtless  merely  passed  on  the  description  from  some 
eyewitness. 


AN  OUTLINE   OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE        5 

brothers  as  the  sons  of  a  town  councilor  were  entitled 
to  free  tuition.  His  masters,  no  doubt,  taught  him 
Lilly's  Latin  Grammar  and  the  Latin  classics, — Virgil, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Cicero,  Seneca,  and  the  rest, — and  very- 
little  else.  H  Shakespeare  ever  knew  French  or 
Italian,  he  picked  it  up  in  London  life,  where  he  picked 
up  most  of  his  amazing  stock  of  information  on  all 
subjects.  Besides  Latin,  he  must  have  read  and 
memorized  a  good  deal  of  the  English  Bible. 

Marriage.  —  In  the  autumn  of  1582  the  eighteen-_ 
year-old  Shakespeare  married  a  young  woman  of 
twenty-six.  On  November  28,  of  that  year  two 
farmers  of  Shottery,  near  Stratford,  signed  what  we 
should  call  a  guarantee  bond,  agreeing  to  pay  to  the 
Bishop's  Court  £40,  in  case  the  marriage  proposed 
between  William  Shakespeare  and  Anne  Hathaway 
should  turn  out  to  be  contrary  to  the  canon —  or  Church 
—  law,  and  so  invalid.  This  guarantee  bond,  no  doubt, 
was  issued  to  facilitate  and  hasten  the  wedding.  On 
May  26,  1583,  Shakespeare's  first  child,  Susanna,  was 
baptized.  His  only  other  children,  his  son  Hamnet 
and  a  twin  daughter  Judith,  were  baptized  February 
2,  1584-5  \  It  is  probable  that  soon  after  this  date 
Shakespeare  went  to  London  and  began  his  career  as 
actor,  and  afterwards  as  writer  of  plays  and  owner  of 
theaters. 

1  The  dates  between  January  1  and  March  25,  previous  to  1752, 
are  always  thus  written.  In  1752  England  and  its  colonies  decided 
to  begin  the  year  with  January  1  instead  of  March  25,  as  formerly. 
Thus  for  periods  before  that  date  between  January  1  and  March 
25,  we  give  two  figures  to  indicate  that  the  people  of  that  time 
called  it  one  year  and  we  call  it  a  year  later.  Thus,  Judith 
Shakespeare  would  have  said  she  was  baptized  in  1584,  while  by 
our  reckoning  her  baptism  came  in  1585. 


6       AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Anne  Hathaway,  as  we  have  said,  was  eight  years 
older  than  her  husband.  She  was  the  daughter  of  a 
small  farmer  at  Shottery,  a  little  out  of  Stratford, 
whose  house  is  still  an  object  of  pilgrimage  for 
Shakespeare  lovers.  We  have  really  no  just  ground 
for  inferring,  from  the  poet's  early  departure  for 
London,  that  his  married  life  was  unhappy.  The 
Duke  in  Twelfth  Night  (IV,  iii)  advises  Viola  against 
women's  marrying  men  younger  than  themselves,  it  is 
true ;  but  such  advice  is  conventional.  No  one  can 
tell  how  much  the  dramatist  really  felt  of  the  thoughts 
which  his  characters  utter.  Who  would  guess  from 
any  words  in  /  Henry  IV,  for  instance,  a  play  contain- 
ing some  of  his  richest  humor  and  freest  joy  in  life, 
that,  in  the  very  year  of  its  composition,  Shakespeare 
was  mourning  the  death  of  his  little  son  Hamnet,  and 
that  his  hopes  of  founding  a  family  were  at  an  end  ? 
Another  piece  of  evidence,  far  more  important,  is  the 
fact  that  Shakespeare  does  not  mention  his  wife  at  all 
in  his  will,  except  by  an  interlined  bequest  of  his 
"  second-best  bedroom  set."  But  here,  again,  it  is  easy 
to  misread  the  motives  of  the  man  who  makes  a  will. 
Such  omissions  have  been  made  when  no  slight  was 
intended,  sometimes  because  of  previous  private 
settlements,  sometimes  because  a  wife  is  always  en- 
titled to  her  dower  rights.  The  evidence  is  thus  too 
slight  to  be  of  value. 

Some  other  motive,  then,  than  unhappiness  in 
married  life  ought  to  be  assigned  for  Shakespeare's 
departure  to  London.  No  doubt,  the  fact  that  Ms 
father  was  now  a  discredited  bankrupt,  against  whom 
suits   were   pending,  had   something  to  do  with  his 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE        7 

decision  to  better  his  family  fortunes  in  another  town. 
Traveling  companies  of  players  may  have  told  him 
of  London  life.  Possibly  some  scrape,  like  that  pre- 
served in  the  deer-stealing  tradition  and  the  resultant 
persecution,  made  the  young  man,  now  only  twenty- 
one,  restive  and  eager  to  be  gone. 

The  Tradition  concerning  Deer  Stealing.  —  Nicholas 
Rowe,  in  1709,  in  his  edition  of  Shakespeare  says:  "He 
had  by  a  misfortune  common  enough  to  young  fellows 
fallen  into  bad  company,  and  among  them,  some  that 
made  a  frequent  practice  of  deer  stealing,  engaged 
him  with  them  more  than  once  in  robbing  a  park  that 
belonged  to  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  of  Charlecote  near  Strat- 
ford. For  this  he  was  persecuted  by  that  gentleman, 
as  he  thought,  somewhat  too  severely ;  and,  in  order 
to  revenge  that  ill-usage,  he  made  a  parody  upon  him; 
and  though  this,  probably  the  first  essay  of  his  poetry, 
be  lost,  yet  it  is  said  to  have  been  so  very  bitter  that 
he  was  obliged  to  leave  his  business  and  family  in 
Warwickshire  and  shelter  himself  in  London."  Arch- 
deacon Davies  of  Saperton,  Gloucestershire,  in  the  late 
seventeenth  century  testifies  independently  to  the 
same  tradition.  Justice  Shallow  in  the  Merry  Wives 
of  Windsor  is  on  this  latter  authority  to  be  identified 
with  Sir  Thomas  Lucy.  He  is  represented  in  the  play 
as  having  come  from  Gloucester  to  Windsor.  He 
"  will  make  a  Star  Chamber  matter  of  it "  that  Sir 
John  Falstaff  has  "defied  my  men,  killed  my  deer, 
and  broke  open  my  lodge."  He  bears  on  his  "old 
coat "  (of  arms)  a  "  dozen  white  luces  "  (small  fishes), 
and  there  is  a  lot  of  chatter  about  "  quartering  "  this 
coat,  which  is  without  point  unless  a  pun  is  intended. 


8       AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Now  "  three  luces  Hauriant  argent "  were  the  arms  of 
the  Charlecote  Lucys,  it  is  certain.  There  is  some  rea- 
son then,  for  connecting  Shallow  with  Sir  Thomas  Lucy, 
and  an  apparent  basis  for  the  deer-stealing  tradition, 
although  the  incident  in  the  play  may,  of  course,  have 
suggested  the  myth.  Davies  goes  on  to  say  that 
Shakespeare  was  whipped  and  imprisoned ;  for  this 
there  is  no  other  evidence. 

Early  Life  in  London.  —  The  earliest  known  refer- 
ence to  Shakespeare  in  the  world  of  London  is  con- 
tained in  a  sarcastic  allusion  from  the  pen  of  Robert 
Greene,  the  poet  and  play  writer,  who  died  in  1592. 
Greene  was  furiously  jealous  of  the  rapidly  increasing 
fame  of  the  newcomer.  In  a  most  extravagant  style 
he  warns  his  contemporaries  (Marlowe,  Nash,  and 
Peele,  probably)  to  beware  of  young  men  that  seek 
fame  by  thieving  from  their  masters.  They,  too,  like 
himself,  will  suffer  from  such  thieves.  "Yes,  trust 
them  not ;  for  there  is  an  upstart  crow  beautified  with 
our  feathers  that,  with  his  Tygers  heart  wrapt  in  a 
Players  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bumbast 
out  a  blank  verse  as  the  best  of  you ;  and  being  an 
absolute  Johannes  Factotum,  is  in  his  owne  conceit  the 
onely  Shakescene  in  a  countrie  .  .  .  but  it  is  pittie  men 
of  such  rare  wit  should  be  subject  to  the  pleasures  of 
such  rude  grooms."  The  reference  to  "  Shakescene" 
and  the  "Tygers  heart,"  which  is  a  quotation  from 
III  Henry  VI,^  makes  it  almost  certain  that  Shake- 
speare and  his  play  are  referred  to.  Greene's  attack 
was,  however,  an  instance  of  what  Shakespeare  would 

1 "  O  tiger's  heart  wrapped  in  a  woman's  hide."  This  line  is  also 
in  the  source  of  Shakespeare's  play.    See  p.  133. 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE       9 

have  called  "  spleen,"  and  not  to  be  taken  as  a  general 
opinion.  His  hint  of  "Johannes  Factotum"  (Jack-of- 
all-Trades)  probably  means  that  Shakespeare  was 
willing  to  undertake  any  sort  of  dramatic  work.  Later 
on  in  the  same  letter  (A  Groatsworth  of  Witte  Bought 
with  a  Million  of  Repentancey  he  calls  the  "  upstart 
crow"    and    his    like    "Buckram    gentlemen,"   and 


Henry  Chettle,  a  friend  of  Greene's,  either  in  Decem- 
ber, 1592,  or  early  in  1593,^  published  an  address 
as  a  preface  to  his  Kind-Harts  Dreamej  making  a  pub- 
lic apology  to  Shakespeare  for  allowing  Greene's  letter 
to  come  out  with  this  insulting  attack.  He  says: 
"With  neither  of  them  that  take  offence  was  I 
acquainted,  and  with  one  of  them  I  care  not  if  I  never 
be.  The  other  [generally  taken  to  be  Shakespeare] 
whome  at  one  time  I  did  not  so  much  spare  as  since  I 
wish  I  had,  for  that,  as  I  have  moderated  the  heate  of 
living  writers,  and  might  have  usde  my  owne  discretion 
—  especially  in  such  a  case,  the  author  beeing  dead, — 
that  I  did  not  I  am  as  sory  as  if  the  originall  fault 
had  beene  my  fault,  because  myself  have  scene  his 
demeanor  no  lesse  civill,  than  he  exelent  in  the  qual- 
itie  he  professes ;  —  besides  divers  of  worship  have 
reported  his  uprightness  of  dealing,  which  argues  his 
honesty,  and  his  facetious  grace  in  writing,  that  aprooves 
his  art.  .  .  ." 

There  is,  then,  testimony  from  two  sources  that  by 
1592  Shakespeare  was  an  excellent  actor,  a  graceful 
poet,  and  a  writer  of  plays  that  aroused  the  envy  of 

1  Printed  first  in  1596,  but  written  shortly  before  Greene's  death 
in  1592.  2  Registered  Dec,  1592,  but  printed  without  date. 


10     AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

one  of  the  best  dramatists  of  Ms  day.  Obviously,  all 
this  could  not  have  happened  in  a  few  months,  and  we 
are  therefore  justified  in  believing  that  Shakespeare 
came  to  London  soon  after  1585,  very  likely  in  1586. 

Later  Allusions.  —  In  1593  the  title-page  of  Venus 
and  Ado7iis  shows  that  a  great  English  earl  and  patron 
of  the  arts  was  willing  to  be  godfather  "  to  the  first 
heyre"  of  Shakespeare's  "invention,"  his  first  pub- 
lished poem.  In  1594  Shakespeare  also  dedicated  to 
Southampton  his  Lucrece,  in  terms  of  greater  intimacy, 
though  no  less  respect.  On  December  27,  1595,  Ed- 
mund Spenser's  Colin  Cloufs  Come  Home  Againe  con- 
tained a  reference  which  is  now  generally  believed  to 
allude  to  Shakespeare. 

"  And  there,  though  last  not  least,  is  ^tion ; 
A  gentler  shepheard  may  nowhere  be  found ; 
Whose  Muse,  full  of  high  thoughts'  invention, 
Doth  like  himself e  heroically  sound." 

The  next  important  reference  is  from  PoUladis  Tamia, 
by  Francis  Meres  (1598) :  — 

"  As  the  soule  of  Euphorbus  was  thought  to  live  in 
Pythagoras,  so  the  sweete  wittie  soule  of  Ovid  lives  in 
mellifluous  and  hony-tongued  Shakespeare;  witness 
his  Venus  and  Adonis,  his  Lucrece,  his  sugred  Sonnets 
among  his  private  friends  &c.  As  Plautus  and  Seneca 
are  accounted  the  best  for  comedy  and  Tragedy  among 
the  Latines,  so  Shakespeare  among  the  English  is  the 
most  excellent  in  both  kinds  for  the  stage ;  for  comedy, 
witnes  his  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  his  Errors,  his  Loves 
Labors  Lost,  his  Love  Labours  Wonne,  his  Midsummer 
Night  Dreame,  and  his  Merchant  of  Venice;  for  trag- 
edy his  Richard  the  2.,  Richard  the  3.,  Henry  the  4., 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE     11 

King  John,  Titus  Andronicus,  and  his  Eomeo  and 
Juliet.  As  Epius  Stolo  said  that  the  Muses  would 
speake  with  Plautus  tongue,  if  they  would  speak  Latin, 
so  I  say  that  the  Muses  would  speak  with  Shakespeare's 
fine  filed  phrase,  if  they  would  speak  English.  And 
as  Horace  saith  of  his;  Exegi  monumentum  aere 
perennius,  Regaliqi^e  situ  pyramidum  altius. 

"  Quod  non  imber  edax :  Non  Aquilo  impotius  possit 
diruere:  aut  innumerabilis  annorum  series  et  fuga 
temporum :  so  say  I  severally  of  Sir  Philip  Sidneys 
Spencers  Daniels  Draytons  Shakespeares  and  Warners 
workes." 

This  is  the  earliest  claim  for  the  supremacy  of 
Shakespeare  in  the  English  theater,  a  claim  never 
seriously  disputed  from  that  day  to  this.  The  numer- 
ous other  contemporary  allusions  to  Shakespeare's 
fame,  which  fill  the  Shakespeare  Allusion  Book,  ^  add 
nothing  to  our  purpose;  but  merely  confirm  the  state- 
ment that  throughout  his  life  his  readers  knew  and 
admitted  his  worth.  The  chorus  of  praise  continued 
from  people  of  all  classes.  John  Weever,  the  epigram- 
matist, and  Richard  Camden,  the  antiquarian,  praised 
Shakespeare  highly,  and  Michael  Drayton,  the  poet, 
called  him  "perfection  in  a  man."  Finally,  Ben 
Jonson,  his  most  famous  competitor  for  public  applause, 
crowned  our  poet's  fame  with  his  poem,  prefixed  to 
the  first  collected  edition  of  Shakespeare's  famous 
First  Folio  of  1623  :  "  To  the  Memory  of  my  beloved, 
the  author,  Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  and  what  he 
hath  left  us. 

1  These  may  be  seen,  as  well  as  all  others  up  to  1700,  in  the  re- 
edited  Shakespeare  Allusion  Book,  ed.  J.  Monro,  London,  1909. 


12      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

*'  He  was  not  of  an  age,  but  for  all  time ! " 

Shakespeare  as  an  Actor.  —  The  allusion  quoted  above 
of  Henry  Chettle  praises  Shakespeare's  excellence 
"  in  the  qualitie  he  professes."  Stronger  evidence  is 
afforded  by  some  of  the  title-pages  of  plays  printed 
during  the  poet's  life.  Thus  Ben  Jonson's  Every 
Man  in  his  Humour  says  on  its  title-page:  "Every 
One  in  his  Timor.  This  comedie  vras  first  Acted  in 
the  yeere  1598  by  the  then  L.  Chamberleyne  his  serv- 
ants. The  principal  comedians  were  Will.  Shake- 
speare, Aug.  Philips,  Hen.  Condel,  Will.  Slye,  Will. 
Kempe,  Ric.  Burbadge,  Joh.  Hemings,  Tho.  Pope, 
Chr.  Beeston,  Joh.  Dyke,  withe  the  allowance  of  the 
Master  of  Reuells." 

Before  this  his  name  had  appeared  between  those  of 
Kemp  and  Burbage  (named  in  the  above  list),  the  one 
the  chief  comedian,  the  other  the  chief  tragedian  of 
the  time,  in  comedies  which  were  acted  before  the 
Queen  on  December  27  and  28,  1594,  at  Greenwich 
Palace.  The  titles  of  these  comedies  are  not  given  in 
the  Treasurer's  Accounts  of  the  Chamber,  from  which 
we  take  the  list  of  players. 

In  1603,  Shakespeare  shared  with  Burbage  the 
headline  of  the  list  of  actors  in  Ben  Jonson's  tragedy 
Sejanus.  That  he  thoroughly  understood  the  tech- 
nique of  his  art  and  was  interested  in  it,  is  evident 
from  Hamlet's  advice  to  the  players.  Throughout  his 
life  in  London,  Shakespeare  was  a  member  of  the 
company  usually  known  as  the  Lord  Chamberlain's 
Company.^ 

1  See  p.  48. 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE     13 

Shakespeare  and  the  Mountjoys.  —  The  most  impor- 
tant addition  of  recent  years  to  the  life  records  of 
Shakespeare  is  that  made  by  an  American  scholar,  Pro- 
fessor Charles  William  Wallace.  He  has  unearthed  in 
the  Public  Eecord  Office  at  London  a  notable  bundle  of 
documents  —  twenty-six  in  all.  They  concern  a  lawsuit 
in  which  the  family  of  Christopher  Mountjoy,  Shake- 
speare's landlord  in  London,  was  engaged ;  and  in 
which  the  poet  himself  appeared  as  a  witness.  Mount- 
joy,  it  appears,  was  a  prosperous  wigmaker  and  hair- 
dresser, and,  no  doubt,  had  good  custom  from  the 
London  actors.  Shakespeare  had  lodgings  in  Mount- 
joy's  house  in  the  year  1604,  and  at  Madame  Mountjoy' s 
request  acted  as  intermediary  in  proposing  to  young 
Stephen  Bellott,  a  young  French  apprentice  of  Mount- 
joy's,  that  if  he  should  marry  his  master's  daughter 
Mary,  he  would  receive  £50  as  dowry  and  "  certain 
household  stuff"  in  addition.  The  marriage  took 
place,  and  the  quarrel  which  led  to  the  lawsuit 
in  1612  was  chiefly  about  the  fulfillment  —  or  non- 
fulfillment —  of  the  marriage  settlements.  Shake- 
speare's testimony  on  the  matter  is  clear  enough  in 
regard  to  his  services  as  the  friend  of  both  parties ;  but 
his  memory  leaves  him  when  specific  information  is 
required  touching  the  exact  terms  of  the  dowry.  Evi- 
dently he  had  no  mind  that  his  old  landlord  should 
suffer  from  the  claims  of  his  unruly  son-in-law. 

Mount  joy's  house  was  situated  in  an  ancient  and 
most  respectable  neighborhood  in  Cripplegate  ward,  on 
the  corner  of  Silver  Street  and  Mugwell,  or  Muggle 
Street.  Near  by  dwelt  many  of  Shakespeare's  fellow- 
actors  and  dramatists.     St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  the  heart 


14      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  London,  lay  five  minutes'  walk  to  the  southwest. 
The  length  of  Shakespeare's  residence  with  the  worthy- 
Huguenot  family  is  not  to  be  learned  from  the  recent 
discoveries;  but  his  testimony  to  Bellott's  faithful 
service  as  apprentice  throughout  the  years  of  appren- 
ticeship — 1598-1604 — makes  it  strongly  probable  that 
during  these  years,  when  the  poet  was  writing  his 
greatest  plays,  he  lodged  with  Mount  joy.  In  1612 
Mount]  oy,  according  to  another  witness,  had  a  lodger 
—  a  "  sojourner"  —  in  his  house;  this  may  mean  that 
Shakespeare  was  still  in  possession  of  his  rooms  in  the 
house  on  Silver  Street.  If  it  be  so,  no  spot  in  the  world 
has  been  the  birthplace  of  a  greater  number  of  master- 
pieces. 

It  is  interesting  to  note,  in  passing,  that  the  various 
witnesses  in  the  Mountjoy  lawsuit  who  have  occasion 
to  speak  of  Shakespeare  always  refer  to  him  most  re- 
spectfully. The  poet  was  evidently  high  in  the  esteem 
of  his  neighbors. 

Shakespeare's  Income  and  Business  Transactions. — 
Shakespeare  was  a  shrewd  and  sensible  man  of  busi- 
ness. He  amassed  during  his  career  in  London  a  prop- 
erty nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  great  as  any  made  by  his 
profession  at  the  time.  In  addition  to  profits  from 
the  sale  of  his  plays  to  managers  (he  probably  derived 
no  income  from  their  publication),  and  his  salary  as 
an  actor,  Shakespeare  enjoyed  an  ample  income  from 
his  shares  in  the  Blackfriars  and  G-lobe  theaters,  of 
which  he  became  joint  owner  with  the  Burbage  brothers 
and  other  fellow-actors  in  1597  and  1599.  Professor 
Wallace  has  discovered  a  document  which  helps,  though 
very  slightly,  to  enable  us  to  judge  what  his  income 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE      15 

from  these  sources  may  have  been.^  In  1615-1616  the 
widow  of  one  of  the  proprietors,  of  the  two  theaters, 
whose  share,  like  Shakespeare's,  was  one-seventh  of  the 
Blackfriars,  one-fourteenth  of  the  Globe,  brought  suit 
against  her  father.  She  asked  for  £600  damages  for 
her  father's  wrongful  detention  of  her  year's  income, 
amounting  to  £300  from  each  theater. 

But  damages  asked  in  court  are  always  high,  and  in- 
clude fees  of  lawyers  and  other  items.  The  probability 
is  that  Shakespeare's  yearly  income  from  these  sources 
was  never  over  £500.  To  this,  though  the  figures 
cannot  be  ascertained  with  any  degree  of  certainty,  we 
might  add  £100  for  salary  and  £25  for  plays  yearly. 
The  total  would  amount  to  fully  £600  a  year  from 
1599  on  till  1611,  about  which  date  Shakespeare  prob- 
ably retired  to  Stratford.  If  we  reckon  by  what  money 
will  buy  in  our  days,  we  may  say  that  Shakespeare's 
yearly  income  at  the  height  of  success  was  $25,000,  in 
round  numbers.  This  is  certainly  a  low  estimate,  and 
does  not  include  extra  court  performances  and  the  like, 
from  which  he  must  certainly  have  profited. 

Shakespeare's  Life  in  London.  —  What  with  the  com- 
position of  two  plays  a  year,  continual  rehearsals,  and 
performances  of  his  own  and  other  plays,  Shakespeare's 
life  must  have  been  a  busy  one.  Tradition,  however, 
accords  him  an  easy  enjoyment  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
time ;  and  his  own  sarcastic  remarks  against  Puritans 
in  his  plays  may  indicate  a  hatred  of  puritanical  re- 
straint. He  must  have  joined  in  many  a  merry  feast 
with  the  other  actors  and  writers  of  the  day,  and  with 
court  gallants.  The  inventory  of  property  left  by  him 
1  See  the  New  York  Times  for  October  3,  1909. 


16      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

at  his  death  indicates  that  while  he  had  accumulated  a 
good  estate,  he  had  also  lived  generously. 

Stratford  Affairs  and  Shakespeare's  Return.  —  While 
William  Shakespeare  was  thus  employed  in  London 
in  building  up  name  and  fortune  for  himself,  his 
father  was  in  financial  straits.  As  early  as  January, 
1586,  John  Shakespeare  had  no  property  on  which  a 
creditor  could  place  a  lien.  In  September  of  the  same 
year,  he  was  deprived  of  his  alderman's  gown  for  lack 
of  attention  to  town  business.  During  the  next  year 
he  was  sued  for  debt,  and  had  to  produce  a  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  to  keep  himself  out  of  jail.  In  1599  he 
tried  to  recover  his  wife's  mortgaged  property  of  Ash- 
bies  from  the  mortgagee's  heir,  John  Lambert,  but 
the  suit  was  not  tried  till  eight  years  later.  Soon 
after  this  the  son  must  have  begun  to  send  to  Strat- 
ford substantial  support.  In  1592  John  Shakespeare 
was  made  an  appraiser  of  the  property  of  Henry  Field, 
a  fellow-townsman.  Henry  Field's  son  Richard  pub- 
lished Venus  and  Adonis  for  Shakespeare  in  1593, 
from  his  shop  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  From  this 
time  John  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  lived  in  com- 
fort. His  ambition  to  secure  the  grant  of  a  coat  of 
arms  was  almost  successful  at  his  first  application 
for  one  in  October,  1596 ;  three  years  later  the  grant 
was  made,  and  his  son  and  he  were  now  "  Gentle- 
men." 

In  May,  1597,  William  Shakespeare  bought  New 
Place,  a  handsome  house  in  the  heart  of  Stratford, 
and  at  once  became  an  influential  citizen.  From  that 
time  to  his  death  he  is  continually  mentioned  in  the 
town  records.     His  purchases  included  107  acres  in 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE      17 

Old  Stratford  (May  1,  1602),  for  £320 ;  the  right  to 
farm  the  Stratford  tithes  (July  24,  1605),  for  £440 ; 
an  estate  of  the  Combe  family  (April  13,  1610),  and 
minor  properties.  In  all  his  dealings,  so  far  as  we 
can  tell,  he  seems  to  have  been  shrewd  and  business- 
like. 

Little  is  known  of  Shakespeare's  children  during 
these  years.  Hamnet,  his  only  son,  was  buried  Au- 
gust 11,  1596.  Susanna,  the  eldest  daughter,  married 
a  physician.  Dr.  John  Hall,  of  Stratford,  June  5, 1607 ; 
Judith  married  Thomas  Quiney,  son  of  an  old  Strat- 
ford friend  of  Shakespeare's,  February  10,  1616,  two 
months  before  her  father's  death.  Shakespeare's 
father  had  died  long  before  this,  in  September,  1601. 

Shakespeare's  retirement  from  London  to  his  na- 
tive town  is  thought  to  have  taken  place  about  1611, 
though  there  is  no  real  evidence  for  this  belief,  except 
that  his  play  writing  probably  ceased  about  this  date. 
In  1614  a  Puritan  preacher  stopped  at  New  Place  and 
was  entertained  there  by  the  poet's  family.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  Shakespeare  visited  London  from  time  to 
time  after  1611.  One  such  visit  is  recorded  in  the 
diary  of  his  lawyer,  Thomas  Greene,  of  Stratford.  As 
late  as  March  24,  1613,  there  occurs  an  entry  in  the 
accounts  of  the  Earl  of  Rutland  of  a  payment  to 
Shakespeare  and  Richard  Burbage  of  44  shillings  each 
in  gold  for  getting  up  a  dramatic  entertainment  for  the 
Earl  of  Rutland. 

In  1616  Shakespeare's  health  failed.  On  January 
25,  a  copy  of  his  will  was  drawn,  which  was  executed 
March  25.  On  April  23,  1616,  he  died,  and  two  days 
later  was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  Stratford  church. 


18     AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Shakespeare's  Portraits,  Tomb,  and  Descendants.  —  Two  por- 
traits, the  "Ely  Palace  "  and  the  "Flower"  portraits,  so  called 
from  former  possessors,  are  thought  to  have  better  claims  to  au- 
thenticity than  others.  New  discoveries  are  announced,  period- 
ically, of  Shakespeare's  portrait ;  but  these  turn  out  usually  to 
be  forgeries.  The  engraving  by  Martin  Droeshout  prefixed  to 
the  First  and  later  Folios,  though  to  us  it  seems  unanimated 
and  unnatural,  is  still  the  only  likeness  vouched  for  by  contem- 
poraries. It  is  thought  by  many  to  be  a  copy  of  the  "  Flower  " 
portrait,  which  bears  the  date  1609,  and  which  it  certainly  very 
closely  resembles.  If  the  Stratford  bust  which  was  placed  in  a 
niche  above  Shakespeare's  tomb  in  Stratford  church  before 
1623  was  accurately  reproduced  in  Dugdale's  Warwickshire, 
then  the  present  bust  is  a  later  substitution,  since  it  shows  dif- 
ferences in  detail  from  that  sketch.  It  is  coming  to  be  believed 
that  the  eighteenth-century  restoration  so  altered  the  bust  as  to 
make  it  quite  unlike  its  former  appearance. 

Shakespeare's  grave  is  in  the  chancel  of  Stratford  church.  A 
dark,  flat  tombstone  bears  the  inscription,  which  early  tradition 
ascribes  to  the  poet :  — 

'*Good  frend,  for  lesvs  sake  forbeare 
To  digg  the  dvst  enclosed  heare : 
Bleste  be  y^  man  y*  spares  thes  stones, 
And  curst  be  he  y*  moves  my  bones." 

The  monument  to  Shakespeare,  with  the  bust  on  the  north  wall, 
is  facing  the  tomb. 

In  his  will,  Shakespeare  provided  that  much  the  larger  por- 
tion of  his  estate  should  go  to  his  eldest  daughter,  Susanna  Hall 
and  John  Hall,  Gent.,  her  husband,  including  New  Place, 
Henley  Street  and  Blackfriars  houses,  and  his  tithes  in  Strat- 
ford and  near-by  villages.  This  was  in  accordance  with  custom. 
To  Judith,  his  younger  daughter,  the  wife  of  Thomas  Quiney, 
he  left  three  hundred  pounds,  one  hundred  as  a  marriage  por- 
tion, fifty  more  on  her  release  of  her  right  in  a  Stratford  tene- 
ment, and  the  rest  to  be  paid  in  three  years,  the  principal  to  be 
invested,  the  interest  paid  to  her,  and  the  principal  to  be  divided 
at  her  death. 


AN  OUTLINE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  LIFE     19 

Shakespeare  left  his  sister,  Joan  Hart,  £20  and  his  wearing 
apparel,  and  her  house  in  Stratford  rent-free  till  her  death,  at 
a  shilling  a  year.  His  plate  he  divided  between  his  daughters. 
The  minor  bequests,  which  include  £10  to  the  Stratford  poor, 
are  chiefly  notable  for  the  bequest  of  money  (26s.  Sd.)  for  rings 
to  "my  fellowes,  John  Hemynges,  Richard  Burbage,  and 
Henry  Cundell."  These  were  fellow-actors  in  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain's Company. 

Within  half  a  centuiy  Shakespeare's  line  was  extinct.  His 
wife  died  August  6,  1623.  His  daughter  Susanna  left  one 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  who  married,  April  22,  1626,  Thomas 
Nashe,  who  died  April  4,  1647.  On  June  5,  1649,  she  married 
John  Barnard  of  Abington,  Northamptonshire,  afterwards 
knighted.  She  left  no  children  by  either  marriage.  Her  burial 
was  recorded  February  17,  1669-70.  Shakespeare's  daughter 
Judith  had  three  sons,  —  Shakespeare,  baptized  November  23, 
1616,  buried  May  8,  1617 ;  Richard,  baptized  February  9, 
1617-8,  buried  February  16,  1638-9 ;  Thomas,  baptized  January 
23,  1619-20,  buried  January  1638-9.  Judith  Shakespeare  sur- 
vived them  all,  and  was  buried  February  9,  1661-2.  Shake- 
speare's sister,  Joan  Hart,  left  descendants  who  owned  the 
Henley  Street  House  up  to  the  time  of  its  purchase,  in  1847, 
by  the  nation. 

The  best  books  on  the  life  of  Shakespeare :  J.  0.  Halliwell- 
Phillipps,  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shakespeare,  tenth  edition, 
London,  1898  (the  greatest  collection  of  sources  and  documents)  ; 
Sidney  Lee,  A  Life  of  William  Shakespeare  (New  York,  Mac- 
millan,  1909),  (the  best  extended  life,  especially  valuable  for  its 
study  of  the  biographical  value  of  the  sonnets) ;  Professor  Wal- 
lace's articles  referred  to  in  the  text. 


CHAPTER  II 

ENGLISH    DRAMA    BEFORE    SHAKESPEARE 

The  history  of  the  drama  includes  two  periods  of 
supreme  achievement,  that  of  fifth-century  Greece  and 
that  of  Elizabethan  England.  Between  these  peaks  lies 
a  broad  valley,  the  bottom  of  which  is  formed  by  the 
centuries  from  the  fifth  to  the  ninth  after  Christ. 
From  its  culmination  in  the  tragedies  of  ^schylus, 
Sophocles,  and  Euripides,  and  in  the  comedies  of  Aris- 
tophanes, the  classic  drama  declined  through  the  bril- 
liantly realistic  comedies  of  Menander  to  the  coldly 
rhetorical  tragedies  of  the  Eoman  Seneca.  The  decay 
of  culture,  the  barbarian  invasions,  and  the  attacks  of 
the  Christian  Church  caused  a  yet  greater  decadence, 
a  fall  so  complete  that,  although  the  old  traditions 
were  kept  alive  for  some  time  at  the  Byzantine  court, 
the  drama,  as  a  literary  form,  had  practically  disap- 
peared from  western  Europe  before  the  middle  of  the 
sixth  century.  For  this  reason  the  modern  drama  is 
commonly  regarded  as  a  new  birth,  as  an  independent 
creation  entirely  distinct  from  the  art  which  had  pre- 
ceded it.  A  new  birth  and  an  independent  growth 
there  certainly  was,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  love  of  the  dramatic  did  not  disappear  with  the 
literary  drama,  that  the  entertainment  of  mediaeval 

20 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  SHAKESPEARE    21 

minstrels  were  not  without  dramatic  elements,  that 
dialogues  continued  to  be  written  if  not  acted,  and 
that  the  classical  drama  of  Rome,  eagerly  studied  by 
the  enthusiasts  of  the  Renaissance,  had  no  slight  influ- 
ence upon  the  course  which  the  modern  drama  took. 
If  we  make  these  qualifications,  we  may  fairly  say  that 
the  old  drama  died  and  that  a  new  drama  was  born. 

The  Beginnings  of  Modern  Drama.  —  When  we  search 
for  the  origin  of  the  modern  drama,  we  find  it,  strangely 
enough,  in  the  very  institution  which  had  done  so  much 
to  suppress  it  as  an  invention  of  the  devil ;  for  it  made 
its  first  appearance  in  the  services  of  the  Church. 
From  a  very  early  period,  the  worship  of  the  Church 
had  possessed  a  certain  dramatic  character.  The  serv- 
ice of  the  Mass  recalled  and  represented  by  symbols, 
which  became  more  and  more  definite  and  elaborate, 
the  great  sacrifice  of  Christ.  And  this  tendency  mani- 
fested itself  in  other  ways,  such  as  the  letting  fall,  on 
Good  Friday,  of  the  veil  which  had  concealed  the  sanctu- 
ary since  the  first  Sunday  in  Lent,  thus  recalling  the 
veil  of  the  Jewish  temple  rent  in  twain  at  the  death  of 
Christ.  But  all  this  was  rather  the  soil  in  which  the 
drama  could  grow  than  the  beginning  itself.  The  lat- 
ter came  in  the  ninth  century,  when  an  addition  was 
made  to  the  Mass  which  was  slight  in  itself,  but  which 
was  to  have  momentous  consequences.  Among  the 
words  fitted  to  certain  newly  introduced  melodies  were 
those  of  which  the  following  is  a  translation: — 

"  Whom  seek  ye,  0  Christians,  in  the  sepulcher  ? 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  who  was  crucified,  O  ye  dwellers  in  Heaven. 
He  is  not  here  ;  he  is  risen  as  he  foretold. 
Go  and  carry  the  tidings  that  he  is  risen  from  the  sepulcher." 


22      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

At  first  these  words  were  sung  responsively  by  the 
choir,  but  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  century  they  were 
put  into  the  mouths  of  monks  or  clergy  representing 
the  Maries  and  the  angel.  By  this  time  the  dialogue 
had  been  removed  to  the  first  services  of  Easter  morn- 
ing, and  had  been  connected  with  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Easter  sepulcher.  In  many  churches  it  was  then 
customary  on  Good  Friday  to  carry  a  crucifix  to  a 
representation  of  a  sepulcher  which  had  previously 
been  prepared  somewhere  in  the  church,  whence  the 
crucifix  was  secretly  removed  before  Easter  morning. 
Then,  at  the  first  Easter  service,  the  empty  sepulcher 
was  solemnly  visited,  and  this  dialogue  was  sung.^ 
The  participants  wore  ecclesiastical  vestments,  and  the 
acting  was  of  the  simplest  character,  but  the  amount  of 
dialogue  increased  as  time  went  on,  and  new  bits  of 
action  were  added ;  so  that  before  the  end  of  the  twelfth 
century  some  churches  presented  what  may  fairly  be 
called  a  short  one-act  play.  Meanwhile,  around  the 
services  of  Good  Friday  and  the  Christmas  season, 
other  dramatic  ceremonies  and  short  dialogues  had 
been  growing  up,  which  gave  rise  to  tiny  plays  dealing 
with  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  visits  of  the  shepherds  and 
the  Wise  Men,  and  the  Old  Testament  prophecies  of 

1  An  extract  from  the  Concordia  Regular  is,  a  tenth-century  ap- 
pendix to  the  monastic  "  rule  "  of  St.  Benedict,  describes  this  cere- 
mony. "While  the  third  respond  is  chanted,  let  the  remaining 
three  follow  [one  of  the  brethren,  vested  in  an  alb,  had  before  this 
quietly  taken  his  place  at  the  sepulcher] ,  and  let  them  all,  vested 
in  copes,  and  bearing  in  their  hands  thuribles  with  incense,  and 
stepping  delicately,  as  those  who  seek  something,  approach  the 
sepulcher.  These  things  are  done  in  imitation  of  the  angel  sitting 
in  the  monument,  and  the  women  with  spices  coming  to  anoint  the 
body  of  Jesus." 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE   SHAKESPEARE     23 

Christ's  coming.  Although  the  elaboration  of  indi- 
vidual plays  continued,  the  evolution  of  the  drama  as 
part  of  the  Church's  liturgy  was  practically  complete 
by  the  middle  of  the  thirteenth  century. 

The  Earlier  Miracle  Plays.  —  The  next  hundred  years 
brought  a  number  of  important  changes  :  the  gradual 
substitution  of  English  for  Latin,  the  removal  from 
the  church  to  the  churchyard  or  market-place,  and  the 
welding  together  of  the  single  plays  into  great  groups 
or  cycles.  The  removal  from  the  church  was  made 
possible  by  the  growth  of  the  plays  in  length  and  dra- 
matic interest,  which  rendered  them  independent  of 
the  rest  of  the  service ;  and  it  was  made  inevitable  by 
the  enormous  popularity  of  the  plays  and  by  the  more 
elaborate  staging  which  the  developed  plays  required. 
The  formation  of  more  or  less  unified  cycles  was  the 
result  of  a  natural  tendency  to  supply  the  missing 
links  between  the  plays  already  in  existence,  and  to 
write  new  plays  describing  the  events  which  led  up  to 
those  already  treated.  Just  as  Wagner  in  our  day 
after  writing  his  drama  on  The  Death  of  Siegfried 
felt  himself  compelled  to  write  other  plays  dealing 
with  his  hero's  birth  and  the  events  which  led  to  this 
birth,  so  the  unknown  authors  of  the  great  English 
cycles  were  led  to  write  play  after  play  until  they  had 
covered  the  significant  events  of  Biblical  history  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  to  the  Last  Judgment.  This 
joining  together  of  isolated  plays  necessitated  taking 
them  away  from  the  particular  festivals  with  which 
they  had  originally  been  connected  and  presenting 
them  all  together  on  a  single  day,  or,  in  the  case  of 
the  longer  cycles,  on  successive  days.      After  1264, 


24      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

when  the  festival  of  Corpus  Christi  was  established 
in  honor  of  the  sacrament  of  Holy  Communion,  this 
day  was  the  favorite  time  of  presentation.  Coming  as 
it  did  in  early  summer  on  the  Thursday  after  Trinity 
Sunday,  it  was  well  suited  for  out-of-door  performances, 
besides  being  a  festival  which  the  Church  especially 
delighted  to  honor. 

The  Great  English  Cycles.  —  Of  the  great  cycles  of 
miracle  plays,  only  four  have  come  down  to  us :  those 
given  at  York  and  at  Chester,  that  in  the  Towneley 
collection  (probably  given  at  or  near  Wakefield),  and 
the  cycle  called  the  Ludus  Coven triae  or  Hegge  plays, 
of  which  the  place  of  presentation  is  uncertain.  The 
surviving  fragments  of  lost  cycles,  however,  taken  to- 
gether with  the  records  of  performances,  show  that 
religious  plays  were  given  with  more  or  less  regularity 
in  at  least  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  places  in  Eng- 
land. The  cycle  which  has  been  most  completely 
preserved  is  that  of  York,  forty-eight  plays  of  which 
still  exist.  It  originally  included  fifty-seven  plays, 
while  the  number  of  Biblical  incidents  known  to  have 
been  treated  in  plays  belonging  to  one  cycle  or  another 
includes  twenty-one  based  on  the  Old  Testament  or  on 
legends,  and  sixty-eight  based  on  the  New  Testament. 

Even  while  the  religious  plays  were  still  a  part  of 
the  Church  services,  they  contained  humorous  elements, 
such  as  the  realistically  comic  figure  of  the  merchant 
who  sold  spices  and  ointment  to  the  Maries  on  their 
way  to  the  tomb  of  Christ.  In  the  later  plays  these 
interpolations  developed  into  scenes  of  roaring  farce. 
When  Herod  learned  of  the  escape  of  the  Wise  Men, 
he  would  rage  violently  about  the  stage  and  even  among 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE  SHAKESPEARE     25 

the  spectators.  Noah's  wife,  in  the  Chester  play  of 
The  Deluge,  refuses  point-blank  to  go  into  the  Ark,  and 
has  to  be  put  in  by  main  force.  The  Second  Shepherds' 
Play  of  the  Towneley  cycle  contains  an  episode  of 
sheep  stealing  which  is  a  complete  and  perfect  little 
farce.  Nor  were  the  scenes  of  pathos  less  effective. 
The  scene  in  the  Brome  play  of  Abraham  and  Isaac 
where  the  little  lad  pleads  for  his  life  has  not  lost  its 
pathetic  appeal  with  the  passage  of  centuries.  While 
many  of  the  miracle  plays  seem  to  us  stiff  and  perfunc- 
tory, the  best  of  them  possess  literary  merit  of  a  very 
high  order. 

As  the  development  of  the  plays  called  for  an  in- 
creasing number  of  actors,  the  clergy  had  to  call  upon 
the  laity  for  help,  so  that  the  acting  fell  more  and 
more  into  the  hands  of  the  latter,  until  finally  the 
whole  work  of  presenting  the  plays  was  taken  over, 
in  most  cases,  by  the  guilds,  organizations  of  the  va- 
rious trades  which  corresponded  roughly  to  our  modern 
trades  unions.  Each  guild  had  its  own  play  of  which 
it  bore  the  expense  and  for  which  it  furnished  the 
actors.  Thus  the  shipwrights  would  present  Tlie 
Building  of  the  Ark,  the  goldsmiths.  The  Adoration  of 
the  Wise  Men.  Sometimes  the  plays  would  be  presented 
on  a  number  of  tiny  stages  or  scaffolds  grouped  in  a 
rectangle  or  a  circle ;  more  often  they  were  acted  on 
floats,  called  pageants,  which  were  dragged  through  the 
streets  and  stopped  for  performances  at  several  of  the 
larger  squares.  These  pageants  were  usually  of  two 
stories,  the  lower  used  for  a  dressing-room,  the  upper 
for  a  stage.  The  localities  represented  were  indicated 
in  various  ways  —  Heaven,  for  instance,  by  a  beautiful 


26      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

pavilion  ;  Hell,  by  the  mouth  of  a  huge  dragon.  The 
costumes  of  the  actors  were  often  elaborate  and  costly, 
and  there  was  some  attempt  at  imitating  reality,  such 
as  putting  the  devils  into  costumes  of  yellow  and 
black,  which  typified  the  flames  and  darkness  of  Hell. 

Fairly  complete  cycles  were  in  existence  as  early  as 
1300 ;  they  reached  the  height  of  their  perfection  and 
popularity  in  the  later  fourteenth  and  in  the  fifteeeth 
centuries ;  and  they  began  to  decline  in  the  sixteenth 
century.  After  1550  the  performances  became  more 
and  more  irregular,  until,  at  the  accession  of  King 
James  I,  they  had  practically  ceased. 

The  Moralities.  —  Of  somewhat  later  origin  than  the 
miracle  plays,  but  existing  contemporaneously  with 
them,  were  the  moralities.  In  a  twelfth-century  mira- 
cle play  characters  had  been  introduced  which  were 
not  the  figures  of  Biblical  story,  but  personified  ab- 
stractions, such  as  Hypocrisy,  Heresy,  Pity.  By  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century  there  had  come  into  ex- 
istence plays  of  which  all  the  characters  were  of  this 
type.  These,  however,  were  probably  not  direct  de- 
scendants of  the  miracles ;  but  rather  the  application 
of  the  newly  learned  dramatic  methods  to  another  sort 
of  subject  matter,  the  allegory,  a  literary  type  much  used 
by  poets  and  preachers  of  the  time.  Such  plays  were 
called  *  moral  plays'  or  'moralities.'  Unlike  the  mir- 
racle  plays,  these  remained  independent  of  each  other, 
and  showed  no  tendency  to  grow  together  into  cycles. 
The  most  beautiful  of  them,  written  at  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  or  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  is 
that  called  The  Summoning  of  Everyman.  It  repre- 
sents a  typical  man  compelled  to  enter  upon  the  long, 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE   SHAKESPEARE     27 

inevitable  journey  of  death.  Kindred  and  Wealth 
abandon  him,  but  long-neglected  Good-deeds,  revived 
by  Knowledge,  comes  to  his  aid.  At  the  edge  of  the 
grave  Everyman  is  deserted  by  Beauty,  Strength,  and 
the  Five  Senses,  while  Good-deeds  alone  goes  with  him 
to  the  end.  Moralities  of  this  type  aimed  at  the  cultiva- 
tion of  virtue  in  the  spectators,  just  as  the  miracle  plays 
had  aimed  at  the  strengthening  of  their  faith.  Another 
type  of  morality  dealt  with  controversial  questions. 
In  one  of  these.  King  Johan,  written  about  1538, 
historical  personages  are  put  side  by  side  with  the 
allegorical  abstractions,  thus  foreshadowing  the  later 
historical  plays,  such  as  Shakespeare's  King  John. 
Another  comparatively  late  type  of  morality  sought 
to  teach  an  ethical  lesson  by  showing  the  effect  of 
vice  and  virtue  upon  the  lives  of  men  and  women. 
Nice  Wanton  (c.  1550),  for  instance,  represents  the 
consequence  of  good  and  evil  living,  not  only  by  the 
use  of  such  allegorical  characters  as  Iniquity  and 
Worldly  Shame,  but  also  by  means  of  the  human 
beings,  Barnabas  and  Ishmael  and  their  sister  Dalila. 
Thus,  although  the  more  abstract  moralities  persisted 
until  late  in  the  sixteenth  century,  these  other  types  at 
the  same  time  helped  lead  the  way  to  the  drama  which 
depicts  actual  life. 

The  Interlude.  —  Both  miracle  play  and  morality 
were  written  with  a  definite  purpose,  the  teaching  of  a 
lesson,  religious,  moral,  or  political ;  the  interlude,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  a  short  play  intended  simply  to 
interest  or  to  amuse.  The  original  meaning  of  the 
word  "  interlude  "  is  a  matter  of  controversy.  It  may 
have   meant  a  short   play  introduced   between   other 


28      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

things,  such  as  the  courses  of  a  banquet,  or  it  may 
have  meant  simply  a  dialogue.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
the  interlude  seems  to  have  had  its  origin  in  the 
dramatic  character  of  minstrel  entertainments  and 
in  the  dramatic  character  of  popular  games,  such 
as  those,  especially  beloved  of  our  English  ancestors, 
which  celebrated  the  memory  of  Robin  Hood  and 
his  fellow-outlaws  of  Sherwood  forest.  The  miracle 
plays  set  the  example  of  dramatic  composition,  an  ex- 
ample soon  followed  in  the  interlude,  which  put  into 
dramatic  forms  that  became  more  and  more  elaborate 
popular  stories  and  episodes,  both  serious  and  comic. 
Although  there  had  been  comic  episodes  in  miracle 
plays  and  moralities,  it  was  as  interludes  that  the 
amusing  skit  and  the  tiny  farce  achieved  an  independ- 
ent existence.  The  first  real  interlude  which  has  come 
down  to  us  is  that  called  De  Clerico  et  Piiella,  Of  the  Cleric 
and  the  Maiden,  which  was  written  not  later  than  the 
early  fourteenth  century.  This  is  little  more  than  a 
dialogue  depicting  the  attempted  seduction  of  a  maiden 
by  a  wanton  cleric.  The  only  other  surviving  four- 
teenth-century interlude,  that  of  Dux  Moraud,  is,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  dramatization  of  a  tragic  tale  of 
incest  and  murder.  This  is,  however,  somewhat  ex- 
ceptional, and  may  perhaps  be  regarded  as  belong- 
ing rather  to  a  type  of  miracle  play  not  common  in 
England,  in  which  the  intervention  of  some  heavenly 
power  affects  the  lives  of  men.  At  any  rate,  it  is 
probable  that  the  interlude  was  not  often  so  serious 
an  affair,  and  it  developed  rapidly  in  a  way  that  gave 
us,  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  interludes  of  John 
Heywood  (1497-1577),  which  are  really  short  farces, 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE   SHAKESPEARE     29 

and  no  bad  ones  at  that.  By  reason  of  its  character 
and  the  small  number  of  actors  which  it  required,  the 
interlude  was  usually  given  by  professional  enter- 
tainers, who  were  either  kept  by  persons  of  high  rank, 
or  traveled  from  town  to  town.  We  find,  therefore, 
in  the  acting  of  interludes  the  conditions  which  gave 
rise  to  modern  comedy  and  to  the  modern  traveling 
company. 

Classical  Influences.  —  In  the  preceding  paragraphs 
we  have  considered  the  early  modern  drama  as  an 
independent  growth,  but  the  influence  of  the  classical 
drama,  particularly  the  Latin  tragedies  of  Seneca  and 
the  Latin  comedies  of  Plautus  and  Terence,  showed 
itself  in  the  later  moralities  and  interludes,  and  was 
to  appear  again  and  again  in  the  later  course  of 
English  drama.  That  great  revival  of  interest  in 
classical  learning  which  gave  the  Renaissance  its 
name,  was  a  mighty  force  in  the  current  of  English 
thought  throughout  the  sixteenth  century.  The  old 
Latin  tragedies  and  comedies  were  revived  and  were 
produced  in  the  original  and  in  translation  at  schools 
and  colleges.  It  was  an  easy  step  from  this  to  the 
writing  of  English  comedies  after  Latin  models.  The 
earliest  of  such  attempts  which  we  know  is  the 
comedy  of  Ralph  Roister  Doister,  written  by  Nicholas 
Udall  for  Eton  boys  at  some  time  between  1534  and 
1541.  This,  commonly  called  the  first  English  comedy, 
is  little  more  than  a  clever  adaptation  of  Plautus  to 
English  manners  and  customs ;  but  a  comedy  written 
soon  after.  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  is  really  an  Inter- 
lude cast  in  the  Plautean  mold.  The  first  English 
tragedy,  Gorhoduc,  closely  imitative  of  Seneca,  but  on 


30      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

a  mythical  British  subject  and  written  in  English 
blank  verse,  did  not  appear  until  1562,  nearly  a  quar- 
ter of  a  century  later.  Seneca's  tragedies  had  little 
action,  slight  characterization,  and  many  extremely 
long  speeches,  which  often  display,  however,  much 
brilliant  rhetoric.  Gorboduc  has  all  these  qualities 
except  the  brilliance.  The  history,  the  third  of  the 
types  into  which  the  editors  of  the  First  Folio  were 
to  divide  Shakespeare's  plays,  was  also  affected  by 
Senecan  influence.  We  have  already  seen  how  the 
historical  figure  of  King  John  appeared  in  a  morality, 
one  which  shows  little  trace  of  classical  tradition; 
and  the  history,  with  its  general  formlessness  and  its 
mixture  of  the  comic  with  the  serious,  remained  a 
peculiarly  English  product.  Nevertheless,  in  the 
second  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  subjects  from 
English  history  were  treated  after  the  manner  of 
Latin  tragedy,  and  the  long,  rhetorical  speeches  of 
the  later  historical  plays  are  more  suggestive  of  Seneca 
than  are  most  Elizabethan  tragedies. 

The  classical  type  of  drama,  with  its  strict  obser- 
vance of  the  three  unities,^  was  not  congenial  to  the 

1  The  three  unities  of  action,  place,  and  time  are  usually  be- 
lieved to  have  been  formulated  by  Aristotle,  who  is  supposed  to 
have  said  that  a  tragedy  should  have  but  a  single  plot  and  that  the 
action  should  be  confined  to  a  single  day  and  a  single  place.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Aristotle  is  responsible  for  only  the  first  of  these, 
and  this  he  presented  as  an  observation  on  the  actual  condition 
which  prevailed  in  Greek  tragedy  rather  than  as  a  dramatic  prin- 
ciple for  all  time.  The  other  principles,  which  were  later  deduced 
from  the  general  practice  of  the  Greeks,  —  a  practice  arising  from 
the  manner  in  which  their  plays  were  staged, — were,  together 
with  the  first,  elevated  by  the  Romans  to  the  dignity  of  fixed 
dramatic  laws. 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE   SHAKESPEARE      31 

English  temperament.  Its  fetters  were  soon  thrown 
off,  and,  with  the  notable  exception  of  Ben  Jonson 
(1573-1637),  few  Elizabethan  playwrights  conformed 
to  its  rules.  Its  influence,  however,  was  not  confined 
to  its  imitators.  From  the  classical  drama  the  Eliza- 
bethans gained  a  sense  for  form  and  for  the  value  of 
dramatic  technique,  which  did  much  to  make  the 
Elizabethan  drama  what  it  was. 

Three  Predecessors  of  Shakespeare.  —  The  develop- 
ment of  the  English  drama  from  the  first  attempts  at 
comedy,  tragedy,  and  history  was  extremely  rapid. 
When  Shakespeare  came  to  London,  he  found  there 
dramatists  who  were  far  on  the  road  toward  mastery 
of  dramatic  form,  and  who  were  putting  into  that 
form  both  great  poetry  and  a  profound  knowledge  of 
human  nature.  A  complete  list  of  these  dramatists 
would  include  a  number  of  names  which  have  a 
permanent  place  in  the  history  of  English  literature, 
such  as  those  of  Thomas  Lodge,  Thomas  Nash,  George 
Peele,  and  Robert  Greene.  Among  these  names  three 
deserve  especial  prominence,  not  only  because  of  the 
great  achievements  of  these  men,  but  because  of  their 
influence  on  Shakespeare.  These  men  were  Marlowe, 
Kyd,  and  Lyly. 

It  was  Christopher  Marlowe  (1564-1593)  who  first 
gave  to  English  blank  verse  those  qualities  which 
make  it  an  extraordinarily  perfect  medium  of  expres- 
sion. Before  him,  blank  verse  had  no  advantages  to 
offer  in  compensation  for  the  abandonment  of  rime. 
It  was  stiff,  monotonous,  and  cold.  Marlowe  began 
to  vary  the  position  of  the  pauses  within  the  line,  and 
to  do  away  with  the  pause  at  the  end  of  some  lines  by 


32      AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SHAKESPEARE 

placing  the  breaks  in  thought  elsewhere.  Thus  he 
gave  to  his  verse  ease,  flexibility,  and  movement,  and 
he  put  into  it  the  warmth  and  vividness  of  his  own 
personality.  Upon  such  verse  as  this  Shakespeare 
could  hardly  improve.  But  this  by  no  means  sums 
up  his  debt  to  Marlowe.  His  characterization  of 
Richard  III,  for  instance,  was  distinctly  affected  by 
that  of  Marlowe's  hero  Tamburlaine,  a  character  to 
which  the  poet  had  given  a  passionate  life  and  an 
energy  that  made  him  more  than  human.  In  other 
ways  less  easy  to  define,  Shakespeare  must  have  been 
stimulated  by  Marlowe's  fire.  The  latter's  greatest 
tragedies,  Tamburlaine,  Dr.  Faustus,  and  Edward  II, 
contain  poetry  so  beautiful,  feeling  so  intense,  and 
a  promise  of  future  achievement  so  remarkable,  that 
his  early  death  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  deprived 
English  literature  of  a  genius  worthy  of  comparison 
with  that  of  Shakespeare  himself. 

Although  Thomas  Kyd  (1558-1594)  was  far  from  the 
equal  of  Marlowe,  he  was  a  playwright  of  real  ability 
and  one  whose  tragedies  were  unusually  popular. 
Influenced  greatly  by  Seneca,  he  brought  to  its  climax 
the  ^tragedy  of  blood'  —  a  type  of  drama  in  which 
ungovernable  passions  of  lust  and  revenge  lead  to 
atrocious  crimes  and  end  in  gruesome  and  appalling 
murders.  His  famous  Spanish  Tragedy  was  the  fore- 
runner of  many  similar  plays,  of  which  Titus  Androni- 
cus  was  one.  He  probably  wrote  the  original  play  of 
Hamlet,  which  was  elevated  by  Shakespeare  out  of 
its  atmosphere  of  blood  and  horror  into  the  highest 
realms  of  thought  and  poetry. 

John  Lyly  (c.  1554-1606)  was  a  master  in  an  en- 


ENGLISH  DRAMA  BEFORE   SHAKESPEARE     33 

tirely  different  field,  that  of  highly  artificial  comedy. 
Ho  brought  court  comedy  to  a  hitherto  unattained 
perfection  of  form  and  style,  and  in  his  best  work, 
Endymion,  he  displayed  a  lovely  delicacy  of  thought 
and  expression  which  has  kept  his  reputation  secure. 
He  is  best  known,  however,  for  his  prose  romance, 
EuphueSf  which  gave  its  name  to  the  style  of  which 
it  was  the  climax.  Euphuism  is  a  manner  of  writing 
marked  by  elaborate  antithesis  and  alliteration,  and 
ornamented  by  fantastic  similes  drawn  from  a  mass 
of  legendary  lore  concerning  plants  and  animals.^ 
This  style,  which  nowadays  seems  labored  and  in- 
artistic, was  excessively  admired  by  the  Elizabethans. 
Shakespeare  imitated  it  to  some  extent  in  Lovers 
Labour^s  Lost,  and  parodied  it  in  Falstaff's  speech  to 
Prince  Hal,  I  Henry  IV,  II,  iv.  Several  of  Shake- 
speare's earlier  comedies  show  Lyly's  influence  for 
good  and  ill  —  ill,  in  that  it  made  for  artificiality  and 
strained  conceits ;  good,  in  that  it  made  for  perfection 
of  dramatic  form  and  refinement  of  expression. 

The  Masque.  —  Somewhat  apart  from  the  main  current  of 
dramatic  evolution  is  the  development  of  the  masque,  which 
became  extremely  popular  in  the  reign  of  James  I.  The  English 
masque  was  an  entertainment,  dramatic  in  character,  made  up 
of  songs,  dialogue,  and  dances.  It  originated  in  masked  balls 
given  by  the  nobility  or  at  court.  To  John  Lydgate,  working 
about  1430,  is  probably  due  the  credit  for  introducing  into  such 

1  The  following  quotation  from  Euphues  (ed.  Bond,  i,  289)  illus- 
trates this  style  :  "  Hee  that  seeketh  ye  depth  of  knowledge  is  as 
it  were  in  a  Laborinth,  in  which  the  farther  he  goeth,  the  farther 
he  is  from  the  end:  or  like  the  bird  in  the  lime  bush  which  the  more 
she  striveth  to  get  out,  ye  faster  she  sticketh  in."  With  this  cf. 
Hamlet,  III,  iii,  69;  I  Henry  IV,  II,  iv,  441. 
D 


34      AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SHAKESPEARE 

disguisings  a  literaiy  element,  while  the  later  course  of  the 
masque  owes  much  to  Italy.  In  the  developed  masque  there 
were  two  classes  of  participants :  noble  amateurs,  who  wore 
elaborate  costumes  and  danced  either  among  themselves  or  with 
the  spectators  ;  and  professional  entertainers,  who  spoke  and 
sang.  The  later  masques  had  elaborate  scenery  and  costumes, 
with  just  as  much  plot  as  would  serve  to  string  together  the 
lyrics  and  dances.  Sometimes  an  anti-masque  of  grotesque 
figures  was  introduced  to  serve  as  contrast  to  the  beautiful 
figures  of  the  masque.  The  masques  were  produced  with  the 
utmost  lavishness,  the  most  extravagant  one  of  which  we  know 
costing  over  £20,000.  Some  of  them,  such  as  those  written  by 
Ben  Jonson,  contain  charming  poetry  ;  but  their  chief  interest 
to  the  student  of  Shakespeare  lies  in  the  fact  that  their  great 
popularity  caused  Shakespeare  to  introduce  short  masques  into 
some  of  his  plays,  notably  Henry  VIII,  The  Winter's  Tale, 
and  The  Tempest.  In  similar  allegorical  dances  often  given 
between  the  acts  of  Italian  plays,  has  been  sought  the  origin 
of  the  '  dumb-show,'  which  was  occasionally  introduced  into 
English  tragedies,  and  which  appears  in  the  Mouse-Trap  given 
in  Hamlet. 

The  most  useful  general  histories  of  this  period  are  :  F.  E. 
Schelling,  Elizabethan  Drama  (Houghton  Mifflin,  1908)  ;  E.  K. 
Chambers,  The  Medioeval  Stage  (Oxford,  1903) ;  and  Creize- 
nach,  Geschichte  des  neueren  Dramas  (Halle,  1893-1909,  and 
not  yet  complete).  Some  of  the  best  Miracles,  Moralities,  and 
Interludes  are  easily  accessible  in  Everyman  with  other  Inter- 
ludes (Everyman's  Library)  and  J.  M.  Manly's  Specimens 
of  the  Pre-Shakespearean  Drama  (Ginn  &  Co.,  1897). 


CHAPTEE   III 

THE    ELIZABETHAN    THEATER 

In  1575  London  had  no  theaters ;  that  is,  no  build- 
ing especially  designed  for  the  acting  of  plays.  By 
1600  there  were  at  least  six,  among  which  were  some 
so  large  and  beautiful  as  to  arouse  the  unqualified  ad- 
miration of  travelers  from  the  continent.  It  is  the  pur- 
pose of  this  chapter  to  give  in  outline  the  history  of 
this  rapid  development  of  a  new  type  of  building ;  to 
describe,  as  accurately  as  may  be,  the  general  features 
of  these  theaters ;  and  to  indicate  the  influence  which 
these  features  exerted  upon  the  Shakespearean  drama. 
But  before  doing  this  it  is  necessary  to  point  out  the 
causes  which  made  the  first  Elizabethan  theater  what 
it  was. 

The  Predecessors  of  the  Elizabethan  Theater.^ — Of 
these,  the  most  important  was  the  innyard.  As  soon  as 
the  acting  of  plays  ceased  to  be  merely  a  local  affair,  as 
soon  as  there  were  companies  of  actors  which  traveled 
from  town  to  town,  it  became  necessary  to  find  some 
place  for  the  public  presentation  of  plays  other  than 
the  pageants  of  the  guilds  or  the  temporary  scaffolds 
sometimes  erected  for  miracle  plays.  Such  a  place  was 
offered  by  the  courtyard  of  an  inn.    The  larger  inns  of 

1  Another  predecessor,  the  great  hall  of  a  noble  or  a  university, 
is  mentioned  in  the  section  on  the  private  theaters. 
35 


36      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

this  period  were,  for  the  most  part,  built  in  the  form 
of  a  quadrangle  surrounding  an  open  court.  Opening 
directly  off  this  court  were  the  stables,  the  kitchen, 
and  other  oflS.ces  of  the  inn ;  above  these  were  from  one 
to  three  stories  of  bedrooms  and  sitting  rooms,  entered 
from  galleries  running  all  round  the  court.  When 
such  a  courtyard  was  used  for  theatrical  performances, 
the  actors  erected  a  platform  at  one  end  to  serve  as  a 
stage ;  the  space  back  of  this,  shut  off  by  a  curtain, 
they  used  as  a  dressing-room;  and  the  part  of  the 
gallery  immediately  over  it  they  employed  as  a  second 
stage  which  could  represent  the  walls  of  a  city  or  the 
balcony  of  a  house.  In  the  courtyard  the  poorer  class 
of  spectators  stood ;  in  the  galleries  the  more '  wealthy 
sat  at  their  ease.  These  conditions  made  the  innyards 
much  better  places  for  play  acting  than  were  the 
city  squares,  while  they  were  given  still  another  advan- 
tage from  the  actors'  point  of  view  by  the  fact  that 
the  easily  controlled  entrance  gave  an  opportunity  for 
charging  a  regular  admission  fee  —  a  fee  which  varied 
with  the  desirability  of  the  various  parts  of  the  house. 
Thus  the  innyards  made  no  bad  playhouses,  and  they 
continued  to  be  used  as  such  even  after  theaters  were 
built. 

They  had,  however,  one  obvious  disadvantage  ;  their 
long,  narrow  shape  made  a  large  number  of  the  seats 
and  a  large  proportion  of  the  spaces  available  for 
standing  room  distinctly  bad  places  from  which  to  see 
what  was  happening  on  the  stage.  To  remedy  this 
defect,  the  builders  of  the  theaters  took  a  suggestion 
from  the  bull-baiting  and  bear-baiting  rings.  These 
rings,  of  which  a  considerable  number  already  existed 


THE   ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  37 

in  the  outskirts  of  London,  had  been  built  for  fights 
between  dogs  and  bulls  or  bears,  sports  vastly  enjoyed 
by  the  Elizabethans.  The  rings,  like  the  innyards,  had 
galleries  in  which  spectators  could  sit  and  an  open 
yard  in  which  they  could  stand,  and  they  possessed  the 
added  merit  of  being  round.  Very  possibly  these  rings, 
like  the  Cornish  rings  used  for  miracle  plays,  originated 
in  the  stone  amphitheaters  built  by  the  Romans  during 
their  occupation  of  Britain,  buildings  occasionally  used, 
even  in  the  sixteenth  century,  for  the  performance  of 
plays.  It  is  hardly  necessary,  nevertheless,  to  look 
farther  than  the  bear  ring  to  find  the  cause  which 
determined  the  shape  of  the  Elizabethan  public  theater. 
The  History  of  the  Public  Theaters.  —  With  such  models, 
then,  James  Burbage  —  the  father  of  Richard  Burbage, 
later  the  great  actor  manager  of  Shakespeare's  company 
—  built  the  first  London  theater  in  1576.  It  was  erected 
not  far  outside  the  northern  walls  of  the  city,  and  was 
called  simply  the  Theater.  Not  far  away,  a  second 
theater,  the  Curtain,  was  soon  put  up,  so  called  not 
from  any  curtain  on  the  stage,  but  from  the  name  of 
the  estate  on  which  it  was  built.  The  next  theater, 
the  Rose,  was  situated  in  another  quarter,  on  the 
Surrey  side  of  the  Thames,  where  the  bear-baiting 
rings  were.  This  was  constructed,  probably  in  1587, 
by  Philip  Henslowe,  a  prominent  theatrical  manager. 
Some  time  after  1594,  a  second  theater,  the  Swan,  was 
put  up  in  this  same  region,  commonly  called  the  Bank- 
side.  The  suitability  of  the  Bankside  as  a  location  for 
theaters  is  still  further  attested  by  the  removal  thither 
of  the  Theater  in  the  winter  of  1598-1599.  The  owner 
of  the  land  on  which  the  Theater  had  originally  been 


38      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

built  had  merely  leased  it  to  Burbage  —  who  had  since 
died,  —  and,  when  the  lease  expired,  he  attempted  to 
raise  the  rent,  probably  believing  that  the  Burbage 
heirs  were  receiving  large  profits  from  the  building. 
Being  unwilling  to  pay  this  increased  rent,  the  Bur- 
gages took  down  the  building,  and  reerected  it  on  the 
Bankside,  this  time  calling  it  the  Globe.  The  last  to 
be  built  of  the  great  public  theaters  was  the  Fortune, 
which  Henslowe  erected  in  1600.  The  situation  of  the 
Fortune  outside  Cripplegate,  although  a  considerable 
distance  west  of  the  Curtain,  was,  roughly,  that  of  the 
earlier  theaters,  the  northern  suburbs  of  the  city. 

This  list  does  not  include  all  the  theaters  built  or 
altered  between  1576  and  1600,  nor  did  such  building 
stop  at  the  latter  date,  —  the  Globe,  for  instance,  was 
burnt  and  again  rebuilt  in  1613,  —  but  the  sketch  is 
complete  enough  for  our  purposes.  By  the  end  of  1600 
all  the  more  important  public  theaters  were  open,  and 
after  that  date,  so  far  as  we  know,  no  important  changes 
in  construction  were  made.  The  next  real  step  — 
which  was  to  do  away  altogether  with  this  type  of 
theater  —  did  not  come  until  after  the  Restoration. 

The  Buildings.  —  Before  describing  the  buildings 
themselves,  it  is  necessary  to  make  one  qualification. 
It  is  impossible  to  speak  of  the  ^Elizabethan  theaters' 
or  of  the  ^Elizabethan  stage '  as  if  there  were  one  type  to 
which  all  theaters  and  stages  conformed.  The  Fortune 
was  undoubtedly  a  great  improvement  over  the  Theater, 
the  outcome  of  an  evolution  which  could  be  traced 
through  the  other  theaters  if  we  had  the  necessary 
documents.  If  the  various  theaters  did  not  differ  from 
each  other  as  some  of  our  modern  theaters  do,  they 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  39 

still  did  differ  in  important  points.  For  example,  while 
the  Globe  and  the  Curtain  were  round,  other  theaters 
were  hexagonal  or  octagonal,  and  the  Fortune  was 
square.  Likewise,  there  were  certainly  differences  in 
size.  In  spite  of  these  facts,  it  is,  however,  still  possi- 
ble to  describe  the  theaters,  in  general  terms  which 
are  sufficiently  accurate  for  our  present  purpose. 

An  Elizabethan  theater  was  a  three-story  building  of 
wooden  or  half-timber  construction.  The  three  stories 
formed  three  galleries  for  spectators.  The  first  of 
these  was  raised  a  little  above  the  level  of  the  ground, 
while  the  yard,  or  '  pit,'  in  which  the  lower  class  of 
spectators  stood,  seems  to  have  been  somewhat  sunken. 
The  galleries  were  supported  by  oaken  columns,  often 
handsomely  carved  and  ornamented.  They  were  roofed 
and  ceiled,  but  the  yard  was  open  to  the  weather. 
Although  we  know  that  the  Fortune  was  eighty  feet 
square  outside,  and  that  the  yard  within  was  fifty-five 
feet  square,  we  are  left  in  uncertainty  about  the  seat- 
ing capacity.  From  fifteen  hundred  to  eighteen  hun- 
dred is,  however,  the  most  convincing  estimate.  There 
were  two  boxes,  or  *  gentlemen's  rooms,'  presumably  in 
the  first  balcony  on  either  side  of  the  stage.  Besides 
these,  there  were  other,  cheaper  boxes,  and  the  rest  of 
the  balcony  space  was  filled  with  seats.  The  better 
seats  were  most  comfortably  cushioned,  and  the  whole 
theater  anything  but  the  bare  rude  place  which  people 
often  imagine  it.  Coryat,  a  widely  traveled  English- 
man of  the  period,  writes  of  the  theaters  which  he  saw 
in  Venice  that  they  were  "  bare  and  beggarly  in  com- 
parison of  our  stately  playhouses  in  England;  neither 
can  their  actors  compare  with  us  for  stately  apparel, 


40      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

shows,  or  music."  That  this  was  no  mere  British 
prejudice  is  shown  by  the  similar  statements  of 
foreigners  traveling  in  England. 

The  most  striking  difference  between  Elizabethan 
and  modern  theaters  was  in  the  position  of  the  stage, 
which  was  not  back  of  a  great  proscenium  frame,  but 
was  built  out  as  a  platform  into  the  middle  of  the 
yard.  At  the  Fortune,  the  stage  was  forty-three  feet 
wide, — wider,  that  is,  than  most  modern  stages.^  Jut- 
ting out  from  the  level  of  the  top  gallery,  and  extend- 
ing perhaps  ten  feet  over  the  stage,  was  a  square  struc- 
ture called  the  '  hut,'  which  rose  above  the  level  of  the 
outside  walls.  Built  out  from  the  bottom  of  this,  a 
roof,  or  '  shadow,'  extended  forward  over  a  large  part 
of  the  stage.  The  front  of  this  '  shadow '  was  borne, 
in  the  better  theaters,  on  two  columns.  The  shadow 
and  the  hut,  taken  together,  are  often  referred  to 
as  the  *  heavens.' 

The  Stage.  —  When  we  turn  from  these  general 
features  of  the  theaters  to  the  stage,  we  shall  find  it 
convenient  to  speak  of  a  front  and  a  rear  stage,  but 
this  does  not  imply  any  permanent  line  of  demarcation 
between  the  two,  or  that  they  were  not  often  used  to- 
gether as  a  single  field  of  action.  The  rear  stage  is 
simply  that  part  of  the  stage  which  could  be  shut  off 
from  the  spectators  by  curtains ;  the  other,  that  part 
which  lay  in  front  of  the  curtains.  In  other  words, 
the  front  stage  is  that  portion  of  the  stage  which  was 
built  out  into  the  yard,  for  the  curtains  continued  the 
line  made  around  the  rest  of  the  house  by  the  front 

1  In  at  least  some  of  the  theaters,  the  stage  seems  to  have  nar- 
rowed toward  the  front. 


THE   ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  41 

of  the  galleries.  In  both  front  and  rear  stages  were 
traps  out  of  which  ghosts  or  apparitions  could  rise 
and  into  which  such  properties  as  the  caldron  in 
Macbeth  could  sink.  From  the  *  heavens,'  actors  rep- 
resenting gods  or  spirits  —  as  Jupiter  in  Cymbeline 
or  Ariel  in  The  Tempest  —  could  be  lowered  by  means 
of  a  mechanical  contrivance. 

The  arrangement  of  the  rear  stage  may  have  differed 
considerably  in  the  various  theaters,  but  the  typical 
form  may  best  be  described  as  an  alcove  in  front  of 
which  curtains  could  be  drawn.  This  alcove  was  by 
no  means  so  small  as  the  word  may  seem  to  imply, 
but  must  have  been  about  half  as  wide  as  the  front 
stage  and  perhaps  a  quarter  as  deep.  In  its  rear  wall 
was  a  door  through  which  the  actors  could  enter  with- 
out being  seen  when  the  curtains  were  drawn,  and  it 
seems  to  have  had  side  doors  as  well.  To  the  right 
and  left  of  it  were  doors  for  such  entrances  to  the 
front  stage  as  could  not  properly  be  made  through  the 
curtains.  This  part  of  the  stage  was  used  for  such 
scenes  as  the  caves  in  Cymbeline  or  The  Tempest,  for 
the  tomb  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  for  scenes  in  which 
characters  concealed  themselves  behind  the  arras,  as 
in  I  Henry  IV  or  Hamlet.  Since  the  front  stage 
could  not  be  concealed  from  the  spectators,  most  heavy 
properties  were  placed  on  the  back  stage,  so  that  this 
part  of  the  stage  was  generally  used  for  scenes  which 
required  such  properties.  For  many  of  these  scenes, 
however,  both  parts  of  the  stage  were  used,  the  actors 
spreading  out  over  the  front  stage  soon  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  scene. 

The  space  between  the  top  of  the  back  stage  and  the 


42      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

heavens  formed  a  balcony,  like  the  balcony  already 
described  as  part  of  the  stage  as  arranged  in  the  inn- 
yards.  This  balcony  could  also  be  curtained  off  when 
occasion  required.  To  the  right  and  left  of  it,  over 
the  doors  leading  to  the  front  stage,  some  of  the  theaters 
had  window-like  openings,  which  were  probably  not  in 
line  with  the  balcony,  but,  like  the  doors  below  them, 
projected  at  an  oblique  angle.  At  one  of  these  windows 
Jessica  appeared  in  the  second  act  of  The  Mercliant 
of  Venice;  from  the  balcony  Romeo  took  leave  of 
Juliet.  Thus  the  Elizabethan  dramatist  had  three 
fields  of  action  —  a  front,  rear,  and  upper  stage  — 
which  he  could  use  singly,  together,  or  in  various 
combinations. 

Settings  and  Costumes.  —  In  order  to  understand  the 
way  in  which  this  stage  was  utilized,  the  student  must 
dismiss  from  his  mind  two  widespread  errors.  The 
Elizabethan  stage  was  by  no  means  a  bare,  unfurnished 
platform,  nor  did  the  managers  substitute  for  a  setting 
placards  reading  "This  is  a  Eorest,"  or  "This  is  a 
Bedroom."  The  difference  between  that  age  and  this 
is  not  one  between  no  settings  and  good  ones ;  it  is 
even  possible  to  doubt  whether  Shakespeare's  plays 
were  not  put  on  more  effectively  then  than  in  most  of 
our  modern  theaters.  The  difference  is  one  of  principle, 
and  even  this  difference  may  easily  be  exaggerated. 
When  we  say  that  Elizabethan  stagings  were '  symbolic,' 
whereas  ours  are  pictc  .al,  we  mean  that  on  the  former 
the  presence  of  a  fe^  selected  objects  suggested  to  the 
mind  of  the  spectc,  .or  all  the  others  which  go  to  make 
up  the  kind  of  scene  presented.  When  a  few  trees 
were  placed  upon  the  stage,  the  audience  supplied  in 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  43 

imagination  the  other  objects  that  belong  in  a  forest ; 
when  a  throne  was  there,  they  saw  with  the  mind's 
eye  a  room  of  state  in  a  palace.  But  our  modern  stage 
also  demands  the  help  of  the  imagination.  It  is  very  far 
from  presenting  a  completely  realistic  picture.  We  see 
three  sides  of  a  room  and  accept  the  room  as  complete, 
although  none  of  us  live  in  rooms  which  lack  a  side. 
We  see  a  great  cathedral  painted  on  a  back  drop,  and 
are  hardly  disturbed  by  the  fact  that  an  actor  standing 
near  it  is  twice  as  high  as  one  of  the  doors.  The 
difference  between  the  two  stages  really  simmers 
down  to  this :  our  symbols  are  of  painted  canvas,  the 
Elizabethans'  were  of  another  sort.  It  is  extremely 
unlikely  that  the  Elizabethans  used  painted  scenes  in 
their  public  theaters.  If  they  ever  did,  such  ^painted 
cloths'  were  of  the  simplest  sort,  and  not  pictures 
painted  in  perspective.  Instead,  they  relied  for  their 
effects  upon  solid  properties — sometimes  quite  elaborate 
ones  —  such  as  trees,  tombs,  wells,  beds,  thrones,  etc. 
These,  as  has  been  said,  were  usually  set  on  the  rear 
stage,  although  some  of  them,  such  as  couches  and 
banquet  tables,  were  occasionally  brought  forward 
during  the  course  of  a  scene. 

There  were,  however,  scenes  which  were  acted  with- 
out any  setting.  The  Elizabethans  did  not  feel  it 
necessary  to  have  every  scene  definitely  localized. 
Consequently,  many  scenes  which  are  described  in  our 
modern  editions  of  Shakespeare  as  '  A  Street,'  '  A  Place 
before  the  Castle,'  etc.,  were  not  definitely  assigned  to 
any  place,  and  were  usually  acted  without  settings  on 
the  front  stage  before  the  closed  curtains.  In  order 
that  no  time  should  be   lost   while  properties   were 


44      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

being  changed,  such  scenes  were  commonly  inserted 
between  scenes  requiring  properties,  so  that  a  certain 
alternation  between  set  and  unset  scenes  resulted. 
The  fourth  act  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice^  for  example, 
begins  with  the  court-room  scene, which  demanded  the 
whole  stage,  the  properties  for  the  court-room  being  set 
on  the  back  stage,  with  perhaps  some  moved  toward 
the  front.  The  fifth  act  takes  place  in  Portia's  garden, 
which  also  took  up  the  whole  stage,  with  garden  prop- 
erties set  on  the  rear  stage.  Between  these  two  scenes 
comes  the  one  in  the  street,  which  was  acted  before  the 
closed  curtains  and  required  no  properties.  The  ar- 
rangement is  somewhat  like  that  followed  in  many 
modern  melodramas,  where  a  scene  not  requiring  prop- 
erties is  acted  in  front  of  a  drop  scene  while  scenery  is 
being  set  behind.  The  raising  of  the  drop  —  which 
corresponds  to  the  opening  of  the  Elizabethan  curtains 
—  not  only  reveals  the  setting  behind,  but  also  makes 
the  whole  stage,  including  that  part  which  was  in  front 
of  the  drop,  the  scene  of  the  action  which  follows.^ 

The  costumes  on  Shakespeare's  stage  were  very 
elaborate,  but  there  was  no  desire  to  make  them  char- 
acteristic of  any  historical  period.  Indeed,  the  striv- 
ing after  historical  accuracy  of  costume  is  so  much  a 
modern  notion  that  it  was  nearly  two  centuries  later 
when  Macbeth  and  Julius  Caesar  began  to  appear  in 
costumes  appropriate  to  their  respective  periods.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  probably  was  some  attempt  to 
distinguish  the  dress  of  different  nationalities.  Some 
notion  of  how  elaborate  the  costumes  of  Elizabethan 
actors   were   is   given  by   the   fact  that   Henslowe's 

1  With  this  whole  paragraph,  cf .  Albright,  pp.  81ff.,  and  lOi-105. 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  45 

diary  ^  has  an  entry  of  £4  14s.  paid  for  a  pair  of  hose, 
and  £20  for  a  cloak.  In  connection  with  this  it  must 
be  remembered  that  money  was  worth  then  about  eight 
times  what  it  is  now,  and  that  a  playwright  of  the 
time  rarely  received  more  than  £8  for  a  play.  Another 
indication  is  given  in  Henslowe's  list  of  the  costumes 
belonging  to  the  Lord  Admiral's  men,  which  included 
some  eighty-seven  garments,  for  the  most  part  of  silk 
or  satin,  ornamented  with  fringe  and  gold  lace. 

The  Private  Theater.  —  In  the  preceding  sections 
the  type  of  theater  described  has  been  referred  to  as 
*  public'  This  has  been  done  to  distinguish  it  from  the 
'  private  '  theater,  a  type  which,  although  similar  in  so 
far  as  the  general  principles  of  staging  employed  are 
concerned,  differed  from  the  public  theater  in  impor- 
tant particulars.  The  private  theater  is  so  called  be- 
cause it  originated  in  the  performances  given  before 
the  invited  guests  of  royalty,  the  nobility,  or  the  uni- 
versities. Since  these  performances  were  given  in 
great  halls,  the  type  of  theater  which  resulted  was 
completely  roofed,  was  lighted  by  candles,  and  had 
seats  in  the  pit  as  well  as  in  the  galleries  —  when  there 
were  galleries.  As  soon  as  such  theaters  were  built, 
admission  was,  of  course,  no  longer  by  invitation,  but 
the  prices  were  so  much  higher  than  those  of  the  pub- 
lic theaters  that  the  audiences  remained  much  more 
select.  The  first  of  these  theaters  was  the  Blackf  riars, 
the  remodeled  hall  of  the  former  monastery  of  the 
Blackfriars,  done  over  by  Burbage  in  1596.     Others 

1  This  memorandum  book  of  Philip  Henslowe,  the  great  man- 
ager, is  one  of  our  chief  sources  of  information  about  the  Eliza- 
bethan theater. 


46      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

were  those  in  which  the  ^  Children  of  Paul's '  acted,  the 
Cockpit,  and  the  Salisbury  Court,  The  Blackfriars 
was  at  first  under  royal  patronage,  the  actors  being 
the  '  Children  of  the  Chapel  Royal.'  These  choir  boys 
were  carefully  trained  in  acting  and  dancing  as  well  as 
singing,  and  were  subsidized  by  royalty,  so  that  their 
performances  tended  to  be  much  more  spectacular  than 
those  of  the  public  theaters.  The  performances  at  the 
Blackfriars  seem  to  have  retained  this  characteristic 
even  after  1608,  when  Shakespeare's  company  took 
over  the  theater.  Probably  because  of  the  patronage 
and  interest  of  royalty,  it  was  in  the  private  theaters 
that  painted  scenes,  already  used  in  court  masques, 
were  first  introduced.  Thus  these  roofed  theaters  are 
really  the  forerunners,  so  far  as  England  is  concerned, 
of  our  modern  playhouses. 

Effect  of  Stage  Conditions  on  the  Drama.  —  When 
studied  in  the  light  of  Elizabethan  stage  conditions, 
many  characteristics  of  the  plays  written  by  Shake- 
speare and  his  contemporaries  cease  to  be  surprising 
or  puzzling.  A  complete  conception  of  all  the  effects 
which  these  conditions  had  upon  the  drama  can  only 
be  gained  by  a  careful  study  of  all  the  plays.  Here, 
moreover,  we  are  obliged  to  pass  over  many  points  of 
more  general  character,  such  as  the  impossibility  of 
representing  night  by  darkness  when  the  performances 
were  given  by  daylight  in  a  theater  open  to  the  sun. 
Two  or  three  are,  however,  especially  important.  For 
instance,  since  it  was  possible  to  leave  many  scenes 
indefinitely  localized,  and  since  there  was  no  necessity 
of  long  pauses  for  the  change  of  heavy  scenery,  the 
dramatists  were  not  limited  as  ours  are  to  a  compara- 


THE  ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  47 

tively  small  number  of  scenes.  This  was  an  advantage 
in  that  it  gave  great  freedom  and  variety  to  the  action ; 
but  it  was  also  a  disadvantage  in  that  it  led  to  a  scat- 
tering of  effect  and  to  looseness  of  construction.  So 
in  Antony  and  Cleopatra  there  are  forty-two  scenes, 
some  of  which  are  only  a  few  lines  long,  and  in  conse- 
quence the  play  loses  the  intense,  unified  effect  which  it 
might  otherwise  have  produced.  Again,  the  absence  of 
a  front  curtain  made  it  impossible  to  end  an  act  or  play 
with  a  grand  climax  or  an  impressive  tableau.  Instead, 
the  scenes  gradually  die  away;  the  actors  leave  the 
stage  one  by  one,  or  go  off  in  procession.  Whether  this 
was  gain  or  loss  is  a  debatable  question.  At  any  rate, 
this  caused  the  Elizabethan  plays  to  leave  on  the 
spectator  an  impression  totally  different  from  that  left 
by  ours.  Finally,  the  absence  of  pictorial  scenery 
forced  the  dramatists  to  use  verbal  description  far 
more  than  is  customary  to-day.  To  this  fact  we  owe 
some  passages  of  poetry  which  are  among  the  most 
beautiful  in  all  dramatic  literature. 

Theatrical  Companies.  —  During  Shakespeare's  life- 
time there  were  in  existence  more  or  less  continuously 
some  twenty  theatrical  companies,  at  least  four  or  five 
of  which,  during  the  greater  part  of  this  period, 
played  contemporaneously  in  London.  We  have 
already  seen  how  great  nobles,  before  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  maintained  small  companies  of  men 
as  players  of  Interludes.  When  not  wanted  by  their 
patrons,  these  men  traveled  about  the  country,  and 
their  example  was  followed  by  other  groups  whose 
legal  position  was  a  much  less  certain  quantity.  As  a 
result,  a  law  was  passed  in  1572  which  required  that 


48      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

all  companies  of  actors  should  be  under  the  definite 
protection  of  some  noble.  As  time  went  on,  this  re- 
lation became  one  of  merely  nominal  patronage,  but 
the  companies  continued  to  be  known  by  the  name  of 
their  patron.  Thus  the  company  to  which  Shake- 
speare belonged  was  known  successively  as  Lord 
Strange's,  the  Earl  of  Derby's,  first  and  second  Lord 
Hunsdon's  (or,  because  of  the  office  which  the  Huns- 
dons  held,  as  the  Lord  Chamberlain's),  and  as  the 
King's  company.  At  various  times  it  appeared  at 
the  Theater,  the  Curtain,  the  Globe,  and  the  Black- 
friars,  its  greatest  triumphs  being  associated  with  the 
Globe.  By  1608,  if  not  before,  it  was  unquestionably 
the  most  successful  company  in  London.  It  had  the 
patronage  of  King  James,  and  it  controlled  and  acted 
in  what  were  respectively  the  most  popular  public 
and  private  theaters,  the  Globe  and  the  Blackfriars. 
When  not  acting  in  London,  it  made  tours  to  other 
cities.  Its  number  included  several  actors  of  well- 
known  ability,  among  them  Richard  Burbage,  the 
greatest  tragic  actor  of  the  time. 

The  most  formidable  rivals  to  this  company  were 
the  Admiral's  men  and  the  children's  companies.  The 
former  company  was  managed  by  Richard  Henslowe ; 
had,  after  1600,  a  permanent  home  in  the  Fortune 
theater;  and  included  among  its  number  Edward 
Alleyn,  next  to  Burbage  the  most  famous  Elizabethan 
actor.  The  two  great  children's  companies  were  those 
made  up  of  the  choir  boys  of  the  Chapel  Royal  and  of 
St.  Paul's.  The  former  had  begun  to  give  dramatic  per- 
formances as  early  as  1506.  They  were  well  trained, 
had  the  advantage  of  royal  patronage,  and  were  ex- 


THE   ELIZABETHAN  THEATER  49 

traordinarily  popular,  becoming  very  serious  rivals  of  the 
men's  companies.  The  performances  of  the  Children 
of  the  Chapel  Eoyal  at  the  Blackfriars  between  1596 
and  1608  were  the  most  fashionable  in  London.  The 
children's  companies  were  finally  suppressed  about  1609. 

The  members  of  the  men's  companies  were  divided 
into  four  classes  :  those  who  had  shares  in  the  house 
and  in  the  company,  those  who  had  shares  only  in  the 
company,  hired  actors,  and  apprentices.  The  third  of 
these  classes  received  a  fixed  salary,  the  last  were 
cared  for  by  the  individual  actors  to  whom  they 
were  apprenticed.  The  profits  of  the  theaters  were 
derived  from  entrance  money  and  the  additional  fees 
received  for  the  better  seats.  All  of  the  first  and 
half  of  the  second  was  divided  between  the  members 
of  the  first  and  second  classes  of  shareholders.  The 
members  of  the  first  received  in  addition  shares  in  the 
other  half  of  the  additional  fees.^ 

Because  female  parts  were  always  taken  by  men  or 
boys,  it  is  sometimes  assumed  that  Elizabethan  acting 
must  have  been  crude.  On  the  contrary,  we  have  every 
reason  to  believe  that  most  parts,  particularly  the  less 
important  ones,  were  acted  better  than  they  are  usually 
acted  to-day.  Some  of  the  actors,  such  as  Burbage  and 
Alleyn,  were  undoubtedly  men  of  great  genius.  All 
of  them  had  the  advantage  of  regular  and  consistent 
training  —  a  thing  only  too  often  lacking  in  these  days 
when  an  actor  of  ability  is  almost  immediately  made 
a  '  star,'  although  he  frequently  knows  pitifully  little 
of  the  art  of  acting.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
testimonies  to  the  ability  of  Elizabethan  actors  is  Ben 

1  For  Shakespeare's  share,  cf.  p.  15. 
E 


50      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Jon  son's   tribute   to   the   memory   of   the   boy  actor, 
Salathiel  Pavy :  — 

"  Weep  with  me,  all  you  that  read 

This  little  story ; 
And  know,  for  whom  a  tear  you  shed 

Death's  self  is  sorry. 
'Twas  a  child  that  so  did  thrive 

In  grace  and  feature, 
As  Heaven  and  Nature  seem'd  to  strive 

Which  owned  the  creature. 
Years  he  number' d  scarce  thirteen 

When  Fates  turn'd  cruel, 
Yet  three  fill'd  zodiacs  had  he  been 

The  stage's  jewel ; 
And  did  act  (what  now  we  moan) 

Old  men  so  duly. 
As  sooth  the  Parcae  thought  him  one, 

He  play'd  so  truly. 
So,  by  error,  to  his  fate 

They  all  consented ; 
But,  viewing  him  since,  alas,  too  late  I 

They  have  repented  ; 
And  have  sought,  to  give  new  birth, 

In  baths  to  steep  him  ; 
But,  being  so  much  too  good  for  earth, 

Heaven  vows  to  keep  him," 

Many  of  the  points  discussed  in  this  chapter  are  still  the 
subject  of  controversy.  The  theories  of  the  stage  adopted  here 
are,  in  general,  those  of  V.  E.  Albright,  The  Shakespearean  Stage 
(Macmillan,  1909).  Among  the  numerous  books  and  articles 
on  these  topics,  the  most  useful  are  :  G.  E.  Reynolds,  Some 
Principles  of  Elizabethan  Staging  {Modern  Philology,  Vols.  3 
and 4)  ;  Brodmeier,  Die  Shakespeare  B'lihne  (Weimar,  1904)  ; 
Fleay,  Chronicle  History  of  the  London  Stage  (London,  1890)  ; 
Henslowe^s  Diary,  ed.  by  W.  Greg  (London,  1904)  ;  and  the 
works  of  Creizenach  and  Schelling  referred  to  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter. 


CHAPTER   IV 

ELIZABETHAN   LONDON 

Shortly  after  Shakespeare  came  to  London,  England 
demonstrated  her  new  greatness  to  an  astonished  world; 
by  the  defeat  of  Spain's  greatest  fleet,  the  "  invincible 
Armada,''  England  showed  herself  as  no  longer  a  small 
island  nation,  but  as  Mistress  of  the  Sea.  In  this  vic- 
tory culminated  the  growth  which  had  begun  under 
Henry  VII,  first  of  Tudor  sovereigns.  Naval  supremacy 
was,  however,  but  a  sign  of  a  much  greater  and  more 
far-reaching  transformation  —  a  transformation  which 
had  affected  science,  literature,  and  religion,  and  one 
which  filled  the  men  of  Shakespeare's  time  with  such 
enthusiasm  for  the  past,  such  confidence  in  the  present, 
and  such  hope  for  the  future,  as  has  hardly  been  paral- 
leled in  the  world's  history. 

During  the  century  which  had  elapsed  since  1485, 
Copernicus's  discovery  that  the  sun  and  not  the  earth 
was  the  center  of  our  universe,  had  revolutionized  the 
map  of  the  heavens,  as  Columbus's  discovery  of  America 
had  revolutionized  the  map  of  the  world.  Thus  stimu- 
lated, scientific  investigation  started  afresh,  working 
in  accordance  with  the  modern  methods  formulated  by 
Francis  Bacon,  while  voyage  quickly  followed  voyage, 
each  new  discovery  adding  fuel  to  the  fire  of  enthusi- 
asm. Wonderful  tales  of  new  lands  and  unimagined 
wealth  spread  from  mouth  to  mouth.  The  voyages 
51 


52      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Martin  Frobisher,  Anthony  Hawkins,  and  Francis 
Drake  opened  new  worlds,  not  only  to  English  imagina- 
tion, but  also  to  English  trade.  It  was  they  and  men 
like  them  who  gave  to  England  her  unexpected  naval 
and  commercial  supremacy. 

The  latter  was  partly  a  result  of  the  former.  Eliza- 
beth's victories  over  foreign  enemies  strengthened  her 
power  at  home,  and  assured  that  freedom  from  internal 
discord  which  is  essential  to  commercial  prosperity. 
No  sovereign  distracted  by  danger  from  without  could 
have  mastered  the  factions  which  had  sprung  up  within. 
The  great  religious  movement  known  as  the  Protestant 
Reformation  had  not  stopped  in  England  with  the 
separation  of  the  English  from  the  Roman  Church 
under  Henry  VIII.  It  had  brought  into  existence  the 
Puritan,  austere,  bigoted,  opposed  to  beauty  of  church 
and  ceremonial,  yet  filled  with  superb  moral  and  reli- 
gious enthusiasm.  It  had  brought  about  the  persecution 
of  Catholics  and  the  still  more  merciless  persecution  of 
Protestants  during  the  Catholic  reaction  under  Queen 
Mary.  Its  successes,  which  began  again  with  Eliza- 
beth's reign,  gave  occasion  for  continual  intrigues  of 
Catholic  emissaries.  It  all  but  plunged  the  nation  into 
civil  war,  a  war  averted  only  by  the  victory  over  Spain 
and  by  the  statesmanship  of  Elizabeth.  Freed  from 
the  fear  of  war,  however,  Puritan  and  Churchman,  each 
in  his  own  way,  could  apply  his  enthusiasm  to  the  works 
of  peace. 

With  the  return  of  peace  and  security,  moreover, 
England  first  felt  the  full  effect  of  the  literary  Renais- 
sance. The  revival  of  classical  learning  had  already 
transformed  the  art  and  literature  of  the  continent, 


ELIZABETHAN  LONDON  53 

especially  that  of  Italy.  When,  therefore,  England 
turned  again  to  the  classics,  it  turned  also  to  the  Italian 
culture  and  literature  to  which  the  Renaissance  had 
given  birth,  and  from  these  sources  English  literature 
received  new  beauty  of  thought  and  form. 

It  was,  then,  in  a  new  England  that  Shakespeare 
lived,  an  England  intensely  proud  of  the  past  which 
had  made  the  present  possible,  an  England  rich  enough 
and  secure  enough  to  have  leisure  and  interest  for  litera- 
ture, an  England  so  vigorous,  so  confident,  that  it  could 
not  fail  to  bring  out  all  that  was  latent  in  its  greatest 
genius. 

The  City  of  London. — All  this  enthusiasm  and  activity 
reached  its  highest  point  in  London.  Even  more  then 
than  now,  London  was  the  center  of  influence,  the 
place  to  which  the  greatest  abilities  were  irresistibly 
attracted,  and  in  which  their  greatest  work  was  done. 
But  the  London  of  Shakespeare's  time  was  vastly  differ- 
ent from  the  London  of  to-day.  On  all  sides,  except 
that  washed  by  the  Thames,  the  mediaeval  walls  were 
still  standing  and  served  as  the  city's  actual  boundary. 
Outside  them  were  several  important  suburbs,  but  where 
now  houses  extend  for  miles  in  unbroken  ranks,  there 
were  then  open  fields  and  pleasant  woods.  The  total 
population  of  the  city  hardly  exceeded  a  hundred 
thousand,  while  that  of  the  suburbs.  Id  eluding  the  many 
guests  of  the  numerous  inns,  amounted  to  perhaps  a 
hundred  thousand  more.  Hence,  although  there  un- 
doubtedly was  crowding  in  the  poorer  quarters,  London 
was  a  much  more  open  city  than  it  is  to-day.  The 
great  houses  all  had  their  gardens,  and  a  few  minutes 
walk  in  any  direction  brought  one  to  open  country. 


54      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Westminster,  now  well  within  the  greater  London, 
was  then  only  the  most  important  suburb.  Here  was 
the  Hall  in  which  Parliament  met,  and,  not  far  away, 
Whitehall,  the  favorite  London  residence  of  the  Queen. 
Attracted  by  the  presence  of  royalty,  many  of  the  great 
nobles  had  built  their  houses  in  this  quarter,  so  that 
the  north  bank  of  the  Thames  from  Westminster  to  the 
City  was  lined  with  stately  buildings. 

The  Thames  was  London's  pleasantest  highway. 
It  was  then  a  clear,  beautiful  river  spanned  by  a  single 
bridge.  If  one  wished  to  go  from  the  City  to  West- 
minster, or  even  eastward  or  westward  within  the  City 
itself,  one  could  go  most  easily  by  boat.  The  Queen  in 
her  royal  barge  was  often  to  be  seen  on  the  river.  The 
great  merchant  companies  had  their  splendid  barges, 
in  which  they  made  stately  progresses.  One  went  by 
boat  to  the  bear  gardens  and  theaters  on  the  south  bank. 
Below  the  bridge,  the  river  was  crowded  with  shipping. 
At  one  of  the  wharves  lay  an  object  of  universal  in- 
terest, the  Golden  Hind,  the  ship  in  which  Drake  had 
made  his  famous  voyage  round  the  world. 

Within  the  city,  most  of  the  streets  were  narrow, 
poorly  paved,  and  worse  lighted.  Those  who  went 
about  by  night  had  their  servants  carry  torches,  called 
"links,"  before  them,  or  hired  boys  to  light  them 
home.  Such  sanitation  as  existed  was  wretched,  so  that 
plagues  and  other  diseases  spread  rapidly  and  carried 
off  an  appalling  number  of  victims.  The  ignorance  and 
inefficiency  of  the  police  is  rather  portrayed  than 
satirized  in  Shakespeare's  Dogberry  and  Verges.  Such 
evils  were  common  to  all  seventeenth-century  cities, 
but  these  cities  had  their  compensations  in  a  freedom 


ELIZABETHAN  LONDON  55 

and  picturesqueness  which  have  disappeared  from  our 
modern  towns. 

The  Citizens.  —  In  Elizabethan  London,  as  in  every 
city,  the  men  who  represented  extremes  of  wealth  and 
poverty,  the  courtiers  and  their  imitators,  the  beggars 
and  the  sharpers,  are  those  of  whom  we  hear  most; 
but  the  greater  part  of  the  population,  that  which  con- 
trolled the  city  government,  was  of  the  middle  class, 
sober,  self-respecting  tradespeople,  inclined  towards 
Puritanism,  and  jealous  of  their  independence.  Such 
people  naturally  distrusted  and  disliked  the  actors  and 
their  class,  and  used  against  them,  as  far  as  they  could, 
the  great  authority  of  the  city.  In  spite  of  court  favor, 
the  actors  were  compelled  by  city  ordinances  to  build 
their  theaters  outside  the  city  limits  or  on  ground  which 
the  city  did  not  control.  Several  attempts  were  made 
to  suppress  play  acting  altogether,  ostensibly  because 
of  the  danger  that  crowded  audiences  would  spread 
the  plague  when  it  became  epidemic.  In  spite  of  this 
official  opposition,  however,  the  sober  citizens  formed 
a  goodly  part  of  theater  audiences  until  after  the  acces- 
sion of  King  James,  when  the  rising  tide  of  Puritanism 
led  to  increased  austerity.  At  no  time  were  the  maj  ority 
of  the  citizens  entirely  free  from  a  love  for  worldly 
pleasures.  They  swelled  the  crowds  at  the  taverns, 
and  their  wives  often  vied  with  the  great  ladies  of  court 
in  extravagance  of  dress. 

St.  Paul's.  —  The  great  meeting  place  of  London 
was,  oddly  enough,  the  nave  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 
This  superb  Gothic  church,  later  destroyed  by  the 
Great  Fire,  was  used  as  a  common  passageway,  as  a 
place  for  doing  business  and  for  meeting  friends.     In 


56      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

the  late  morning  hours,  the  men-about-town  prome- 
naded there,  displaying  their  gorgeous  clothes  and 
hailing  those  whom  they  wished  to  have  known  as 
their  acquaintances.  If  a  gallant's  cash  were  at  low 
ebb,  he  loitered  there,  hoping  for  an  invitation  to 
dinner.  If  he  had  had  a  dinner,  he  often  came  back 
for  another  stroll  in  the  afternoon.  At  one  pillar  he 
would  find  lawyers  standing ;  at  another,  serving  men 
seeking  employment;  at  still  another,  public  secre- 
taries. Here  one  could  learn  anything  from  the  latest 
fashion  to  the  latest  political  scandal.  Meanwhile, 
divine  worship  might  be  going  on  in  the  chancel,  unob- 
served unless  some  fop  wished  to  make  himself  con- 
spicuous by  joking  with  the  choir  boys.  Thus  St. 
Paul's  was  a  school  of  life  invaluable  to  the  dramatist. 
We  know  that  Ben  Jonson  learned  much  there,  and  we 
can  hardly  doubt  that  Shakespeare  did  likewise. 

The  Taverns.  —  Another  center  of  London  life  was 
the  tavern.  The  man  who  would  now  lunch  at  his 
club  then  dined  at  an  ^  ordinary,'  a  table  d^hdte  in 
some  tavern.  Men  dined  at  noon,  and  then  sat  on 
over  their  wine,  smoking  or  playing  at  cards  or  dice. 
In  the  evening  one  could  always  find  there  music  and 
good  company.  One  tradition  of  Shakespeare  tells  of 
his  evenings  at  the  Mermaid  tavern.  "  Many  were  the 
wit-combates,"  writes  Fuller,  "betwixt  him  [Shake- 
speare] and  Ben  Jonson,  which  two  I  behold  like  a 
Spanish  great  gallion,  and  an  English  man  of  War; 
Master  Jonson  (like  the  former)  was  built  far  higher 
in  Learning;  Solid,  but  Slow  in  his  performances. 
Shake-spear,  with  the  English  man-of-War,  lesser  in 
bulk,  but  lighter  in  sailing,  could  turn  with  all  tides, 


TiMON  OF  Athens,  v,  4.     Outer  Scene. 

Trumpets  sound.     Enter  Alcibiades  with   his 

Powers  be/ore  Athens. 
"Ate.     Sound   to  this   Coward,   and   lascivious 

Towne,  Our  terrible  approach." 
Sounds  a  party.      The  Senators  appear e  upon 

the  Wats. 

Keproduced   from    The  Shakespearean  Stage,  by  V.  E.   Albright,   through   the 
courtesy  of  the  publishers,  the  Columbia  University  Press. 


ELIZABETHAN  LONDON  57 

tack  about  and  take  advantage  of  all  winds,  by  the 
quickness  of  his  Wit  and  Invention."  Francis  Beau- 
mont, the  dramatist,  wrote  the  following  verses  to 
Ben  Jonson :  — 


"  What  things  have  we 
Done  at  the  Mermaid,  heard  words  that  have  been 
So  nimble,  and  so  full  of  subtle  flame. 
As  if  everyone  from  whence  they  came 
Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  had  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life  ;  then  when  there  hath  been  thrown 
"Wit  able  enough  to  justify  the  town 
For  three  days  past ;  wit  that  might  warrant  be 
For  the  whole  city  to  talk  foolishly 
Till  that  were  cancelled  ;  and  when  that  was  gone, 
We  left  an  air  behind  us,  which  alone 
Was  able  to  make  the  two  next  companies 
(Right  witty,  though  but  downright  fools)  more  wise." 

At  the  Theater.  —  Having  dined,  the  Elizabethan 
gentleman  often  visited  one  of  the  numerous  book- 
shops, or  else  went  to  the  theater,  perhaps  to  the 
Globe.  In  the  latter  case,  since  this  theater  was  on 
the  south  bank  of  the  Thames,  he  was  most  likely  to 
cross  the  river  by  boat.  A  flag,  floating  from  a  turret 
over  the  theater,  announced  a  performance  there. 
The  prices  paid  for  admission  varied,  but  the  regular 
price  for  entrance  to  the  G-lobe  seems  to  have  been  a 
penny  (about  fifteen  cents  in  the  money  of  to-day). 
This,  however,  gave  one  only  the  right  to  stand  in  the 
pit  or,  perhaps,  to  sit  in  the  top  gallery.  For  a  box 
the  price  was  probably  a  shilling  (equivalent  to  two 
dollars),  the  poorer  seats  costing  less.  At  the  aristo- 
cratic Blackfriars,  sixpence  (one  dollar)  was  the  low- 


58      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

est  price.  At  this  theater,  the  most  fashionable 
occupied  seats  on  the  stage,  where  they  were  at  once 
extremely  conspicuous  and  in  the  way  of  the  actors ; 
but  this  custom  probably  did  not  spread  to  the  Globe 
before  1603.  At  the  Blackfriars,  too,  one  could  have 
a  seat  in  the  pit,  while  at  the  Globe  the  pit  was  filled 
with  a  standing,  jostling  crowd  of  apprentices  and 
riffraff.  In  the  theater  every  one  was  talking,  laugh- 
ing, smoking,  buying  oranges,  nuts,  wine,  or  cheap 
books  from  shouting  venders,  just  as  is  done  in  some 
music  halls  to-day.  Once  the  trumpet  had  sounded  for 
the  third  time,  indicating  the  beginning  of  the  per- 
formance, a  reasonable  degree  of  quiet  was  restored, 
until  a  pause  in  the  action  let  the  uproar  burst  forth 
anew.  At  an  Elizabethan  theater  there  were  no  pauses 
for  shifting  scenes.  Consequently  the  few  introduced 
were  determined  either  by  convention  or  by  breaks  in 
the  action.  At  the  Blackfriars  and  more  aristocratic 
theaters,  there  was  music  between  the  acts,  but  at  the 
Globe  this  was  not  customary  until  a  comparatively 
late  date,  if  ever. 

An  audience  like  that  at  the  Globe,  made  up  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  from  the  highest  nobility 
to  the  lowest  criminal,  was,  quite  naturally,  not  easy 
to  please  as  a  whole.  Yet,  after  all,  the  Elizabethans 
were  less  critical  in  some  respects  than  we  are.  Al- 
though many  comparatively  cheap  books  were  pub- 
lished, reading  had  not  then  become  a  habit,  and  a 
good  plot  was  not  the  less  appreciated  because  it  was 
old.  The  audiences  did,  however,  demand  constant 
variety,  so  that  plays  had  short  runs,  and  most  dram- 
atists were  forced  to  pay  more  attention  to  quantity 


?-s 


7— «*y-.-<i^-.V"^ 


i>*^*i»^ 


TiMON  OF  Athens,  v,  3.     Inner  Scene. 

Enter  a  Soultfier  in  the  WoorfSy  seeking  Ti. 
"Sat. — Timon  is  dead,  who  hath  out-stietch 


hi  his 

Some  Heast  reade  this ;  There  do's  not 
live  a  Man. 

Dead  sure,  and  this  his  Grave,  what 's  on 
this  Tomb," 

Reproduced  from    The  SJiakespearean  Stafje,   by  V.  E.   Albright,   through  the 
courtesy  of  the  publishers,  the  Columbia  University  Press. 


ELIZABETHAN  LONDON  59 

than  to  quality  of  production.  The  playwrights  had, 
nevertheless,  one  great  advantage  over  ours.  Since 
the  performances  were  given  in  the  afternoon,  and 
since  theaters  like  the  Globe  were  open  to  the  weather, 
these  men  wrote  for  audiences  which  were  fresh  and 
wide-awake,  ready  to  receive  the  best  which  the  dram- 
atist had  to  give. 

It  was  under  such  conditions  as  these  that  Shake- 
speare worked.  He  wrote  for  all  classes  of  people, 
men  bound  together,  nevertheless,  by  a  common  en- 
thusiasm for  England's  past  and  a  common  confidence 
in  England's  future ;  men  who  were  constantly  coming 
in  contact  with  persons  from  all  parts  of  Europe,  with 
sailors  and  travelers  who  had  seen  the  wonders  of  the 
New  World  and  the  Old;  men  so  stimulated  by  new 
discoveries,  by  new  achievements  of  every  sort,  that 
hardly  anything,  even  the  supernatural,  seemed  for 
them  impossible.  Outside  of  ancient  Athens,  no 
dramatist  has  had  a  more  favorable  environment. 

The  best  books  on  this  subject  for  the  general  reader  :  Sir 
Walter  Besant,  London  in  the  Time  of  the   Tudors  (London, 

1904)  ;  H.  T.  Stephenson,  Shakespeare'' s  London  (Henry  Holt, 

1905)  ;  T.  F.  Ordish,  Shakespeare's  London  (The  Temple 
Shakespeare  Manuals,  1897). 


CHAPTER  V 
Shakespeare's  nondramatic  works 

We  shall  later  trace  Shakespeare's  development  as 
a  writer  of  plays.  We  must  first,  however,  turn  back 
to  discuss  some  early  productions  of  his,  which  were 
composed  before  most  of  his  dramas,  and  which  are 
wholly  distinct  from  these  in  character. 

Every  young  author  who  mixes  with  men  notices 
what  kinds  of  work  other  writers  are  producing,  and 
is  tempted  to  try  his  hand  at  every  kind  in  turn. 
Later  he  learns  that  he  is  fitted  for  one  particular  kind 
of  work ;  and,  leaving  other  forms  of  writing  to  other 
men,  devotes  the  rest  of  his  life  to  his  chosen  field. 
So  it  was  with  Shakespeare.  While  a  young  man,  he 
tried  several  different  forms  of  poetry  in  imitation  of 
contemporary  versifiers,  and  thus  produced  the  poems 
which  we  are  to  discuss  in  this  chapter.  Later  he 
came  to  realize  that  his  special  genius  was  in  the 
field  of  the  drama,  and  abandoned  other  types  of 
poetry  to  turn  his  whole  energy  toward  the  production 
of  plays.  Although  unquestionably  inferior  to  the 
author's  greatest  comedies  and  tragedies,  these  early 
poems  are,  in  their  kind,  masterpieces  of  literature. 

Venus  and  Adonis. — The  first  of  these  poems,  a 
verse  narrative  of  some  1204  lines,  called  Venus  and 
Adonis,  was  printed  in  the  spring  of  1593  when  the 

60 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     61 

author  was  about  twenty-nine  years  old.  As  far  as 
we  have  evidence,  it  was  the  first  of  all  Shakespeare's 
works  to  appear  in  print ;  ^  but  it  is  possible  that  some 
early  plays  were  composed  before  it  although  printed 
after  it. 

Other  poets  of  the  day  had  been  interested  in  retell- 
ing in  their  own  way  old  stories  of  Greek  and  Roman 
literature,  and  Shakespeare,  in  Venus  and  Adonis,  was 
engaged  in  the  same  task.  The  outline  of  the  poem  is 
taken  (either  directly  or  through  an  imitation  of  pre- 
vious borrowers)  from  the  Latin  poet  Ovid,^  who  lived 
in  the  time  of  Christ.  Venus,  the  goddess  of  love,  is 
enamored  of  a  beautiful  boy,  called  Adonis,  and  tries 
in  vain  by  every  device  to  win  his  affection.  He  re- 
pulses all  her  advances,  and  finally  runs  away  to  go 
hunting,  and  is  killed  by  a  wild  boar.  Venus  mourns 
over  his  dead  body,  and  causes  a  flower  (the  anemone 
or  windflower)  to  spring  from  his  blood.  Shakespeare's 
handling  of  the  story  shows  both  the  virtues  and 
the  defects  of  a  young  writer.  It  is  more  diffuse,  more 
wordy,  than  his  later  work,  and  written  for  the  taste 
of  another  time  than  ours ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it 
is  full  of  vivid,  picturesque  language  of  melodious 
rhythm,  and  of  charming  little  touches  of  country  life. 

Like  most  of  Shakespeare's  verse,  it  is  written  in 
iambic  pentameter.  ^    The  poem  is  divided  into  stanzas 

1  Shakespeare  in  his  dedication  calls  it  "  the  first  heir  of  my  in- 
vention "  ;  but  opinions  differ  as  to  what  he  meant  by  this. 

2  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  Book  X. 

8 That  is,  the  common,  or  standard,  line  has  ten  syllables  with  an 
accent  on  every  even  syllable,  as  in  the  following  line  :  — 

1         2         345         67         8  9     10 

The  NIGHT  of  SORrow  NOW  is  TURN'D  to  DAY. 


62      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  six  lines  each,  in  which  the  first  and  third  lines 
rime,  the  second  and  fourth,  and  the  fifth  and  sixth. 
We  represent  this  arrangement  of  rimes  by  saying 
that  the  rime  scheme  of  the  stanza  is  a,  b,  a,  b,  c,  c, 
where  the  same  letter  represents  the  same  riming 
sound  at  the  ends  of  lines.  As  a  specimen  stanza,  the 
following,  often  quoted  because  of  the  vivid  picture 
it  presents,  is  given.     It  describes  a  mettlesome  horse. 

"  Eound-hoof'd,  short-jointed,  fetlocks  shag  and  long,  (a) 

Round  breast,  full  eye,  small  head  and  nostril  wide,  (b) 

High  crest,  short  ears,  straight  legs  and  passing  strong,  (a) 

Thin  mane,  thick  tail,  broad  buttock,  tender  hide  :  (&) 

Look,  what  a  horse  should  have  he  did  not  lack,  (c) 

Save  a  proud  rider  on  so  proud  a  back."  (c) 

The  Rape  of  Lucrece.  —  A  year  later,  in  1594,  when 
Shakespeare  was  thirty,  he  published  another  nar- 
rative poem,-  TJie  Rape  of  Lucrece.  The  story  of 
Lucrece  had  also  come  down  from  Ovid.^  This  poem 
is  about  1800  lines  in  length.  It  tells  the  old  legend, 
found  at  the  beginning  of  all  Roman  histories,  how 
Sextus  Tarquin  ravished  Lucrece,  the  pure  and  beauti- 
ful wife  of  Collatine,  one  of  the  Roman  nobles ;  how 
she  killed  herself  rather  than  survive  her  shame  ;  and 
how  her  husband  and  friends  swore  in  revenge  to  de- 
throne the  whole  Tarquin  family.  This  poem,  as 
compared  with  Venus  and  Adonis,  shows  some  traces 
of  increasing  maturity.  The  author  does  more  serious 
and  concentrated  thinking  as  he  writes.  Whether  or 
not  it  is  a  better  poem  is  a  question  which  every  man 
must  settle  for  himself.  Its  best  passages  are  prob- 
ably more  impressive,  its  poorest  ones  more  dull. 
1  From  his  Fasti. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     63 

The  form  of  stanza  used  here  is  known  as  "  rime 
royal,"  which  had  become  famous  two  centuries  before 
as  a  favorite  meter  of  the  first  great  English  poet, 
Geoffrey  Chaucer.  This  stanza  contains  seven  lines 
instead  of  six :  the  rime-scheme  is  as  follows  :  a,  h, 
a,  h,  h,  c,  c.  The  following  is  a  specimen  stanza 
from  the  poem  :  — 

"  Now  stole  upon  the  time  the  dead  of  night,  (a) 

When  heavy  sleep  had  closed  up  mortal  eyes.  (6) 

No  comfortable  star  did  lend  his  light,  (a) 

No  noise  but  owls'  and  wolves'  death-boding  cries ;  (6) 

Now  serves  the  season  that  they  may  surprise  (6) 

The  silly  lambs.    Pure  thoughts  are  dead  and  still,  (c) 

While  lust  and  murder  wakes  to  stain  and  kill."  (c) 

A  significant  fact  about  both  of  these  poems  is  that 
they  were  dedicated  to  Henry  Wriothesley  (pronounced 
Wrisley  or  Rot'-es-ly),  Earl  of  Southampton,  who  has 
already  been  mentioned  as  a  friend  and  patron  of 
Shakespeare.  The  dedication  at  the  beginning  of 
Venus  and  Adonis  is  conventional  and  almost  timid  in 
tone ;  that  prefixed  to  the  Lucrece  seems  to  indicate  a 
closer  and  more  confident  friendship  which  had  grown 
up  during  the  intervening  year.  Dedications  to  some 
prominent  man  were  frequently  prefixed  to  books  by 
Elizabethan  authors,  either  as  a  mark  of  love  and 
respect  to  the  person  addressed,  or  in  hopes  that  a 
little  pecuniary  help  would  result  from  this  acceptable 
form  of  flattery.  In  Shakespeare's  case  it  may  pos- 
sibly have  fulfilled  both  of  these  purposes. 

The  Sonnets.  —  Besides  these  two  narrative  poems 
Shakespeare  wrote  numerous   sonnets.     In  order  to 


64      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

understand  his  accomplishment  in  this  form  of  poetry, 
some  account  of  the  type  is  necessary. 

The  sonnet  may  be  briefly  defined  as  a  rimed 
poem  in  iambic  pentameter,  containing  fourteen  lines, 
divided  into  the  octave  of  eight  lines  and  the  sextet 
of  six. 

The  sonnet  originated  in  southern  Europe,  and 
reached  its  highest  stage  of  development  in  the  hands 
of  the  great  Italian  poet  Petrarch,  who  lived  some  two 
centuries  before  Shakespeare.  As  written  by  him  it 
was   characterized  by  a  complicated    rime   scheme,^ 

1  The  rime  scheme  of  the  Italian  type  divided  each  somiet  into 
two  parts,  the  first  one  of  eight  lines,  the  second  of  six.  In  the 
first  eight  lines  the  rimes  usually  went  a,  b,  b,  a,  a,  b,  b,  a  ;  but 
sometimes  a,  b,  a,  b,  a,  b,  a,b  :  in  both  cases  using  only  two 
rimes  for  the  eight  lines.  In  the  second  or  six-line  part  there 
were  several  different  arrangements,  of  which  the  following  were 
the  most  common  :  (1)  c,  d,  e,  c,  d,e;  (2)  c,  d,  c,  d,  c,  d  ;  (3)  c,  d, 
e,  d,  c,  e.  All  of  these  rime-schemes  alike  were  intended,  by  their 
constant  repetition  and  interlocking  of  the  same  rimes,  to  give 
the  whole  poem  an  air  of  exquisite  workmanship,  like  that  of  a 
finely  modeled  vase.  Here  is  an  English  sonnet  of  Milton's,  imi- 
tating the  form  of  Petrarch's  and  illustrating  its  rime  scheme  :  — 

"  When  I  consider  how  my  light  is  spent  (a) 

Ere  half  my  days  in  this  dark  world  and  wide,  (&) 

And  that  one  talent  which  is  death  to  hide  (6) 

Lodged  with  me  useless,  though  my  soul  more  bent  (a) 

To  serve  therewith  my  Maker,  and  present  (a) 

My  true  account,  lest  He  returning  chide,  (6) 

Doth  God  exact  day-labour,  light  denied  ?  (6) 

I  fondly  ask.    But  Patience,  to  prevent  (a) 

That  murmur,  soon  replies,  God  doth  not  need  (c) 

Either  man's  work  or  his  own  gifts.    Who  best  (d) 

Bear  his  mild  yoke,  they  serve  Him  best.    His  state  («) 

Is  kingly  :  thousands  at  his  bidding  speed,  (c) 

And  post  o'er  land  and  ocean  without  rest  ;  (<0 

They  also  serve  who  only  stand  and  wait."  («) 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     65 

which  gave  each  one  of  these  short  poems  an  atmos- 
phere of  unusual  elegance  and  polish. 

Sonnets  were  often  written  in  groups  on  a  single 
theme.  These  were  called  sonnet  sequences.  Each 
separate  poem  was  like  a  single  facet  of  a  diamond, 
illuminating  the  subject  from  a  new  point  of  view. 

In  the  hands  of  Petrarch  and  other  great  writers  of 
his  own  and  later  times,  the  sonnet  became  one  of  the 
most  popular  forms  of  verse  in  Europe.  Such  popu- 
larity for  any  particular  type  of  literature  never 
arises  without  a  reason.'  The  aim  of  the  sonnet  is  to 
embody  one  single  idea  or  emotion,  one  deep  thought 
or  wave  of  strong  feeling,  to  concentrate  the  reader's 
whole  mind  on  this  one  central  idea,  and  to  clinch  it 
at  the  end  by  some  epigrammatic  phrase  which  will 
fasten  it  firmly  in  the  reader's  memory.  For  instance, 
in  Milton's  sonnet  On  his  Blindness,  the  central  idea 
is  the  glory  of  patience  ;  and  the  last  line  drives  this 
main  idea  home  in  words  so  pithily  adapted  that 
they  have  become  almost  proverbial. 

During  the  sixteenth  century,  rich  young  English- 
men were  in  the  habit  of  traveling  in  Italy  for  educa- 
tion and  general  culture.  They  brought  home  with 
them  a  great  deal  that  they  saw  in  this  brilliant  and 
highly  educated  country;  and  among  other  things 
they  imported  into  England  the  Italian  habit  of  writ- 
ing sonnets.  The  first  men  who  composed  sonnets  in 
English  after  the  Italian  models  were  two  young 
noblemen,  Sir  Thomas  Wyatt  and  the  Earl  of  Surrey, 
who  wrote  just  before  Shakespeare  was  born.  Their 
work  called  out  a  crowd  of  imitators;  and  in  a  few 
years  the  writing  of  sonnets  became  the  fashion. 

F 


66      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

As  a  young  man,  Shakespeare  found  himself  among 
a  crowd  of  authors,  with  whom  sonnetteering  was  a 
literary  craze ;  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  he  should 
follow  the  fashion.  Most  of  these  were  probably 
composed  about  1594,  when  the  poet  was  thirty  years 
old;  but  in  regard  to  this  there  is  some  uncertainty. 
A  few  were  certainly  later.  They  were  not  printed  in 
a  complete  volume  until  1609;^  and  then  they  were 
issued  by  a  piratical  publisher,  apparently  without  the 
author's  consent. 

In  the  Shakespearean  sonnet  the  complicated  rime 
scheme  of  its  Italian  original  has  become  very  much 
simplified,  being  reduced  to  the  following  form :  a,  6, 
a,  b'j  c,  d,  c,  d\  e,  /,  e,  /;  g,  g.  This  is  merely  three 
four-line  stanzas  with  alternate  rimes,  plus  a  final 
couplet.  Such  a  simplified  form  had  already  been 
used  by  other  English  authors,  from  whom  our  poet 
borrowed  it. 

Shakespeare's  sonnets,  apart  from  some  scattered 
ones  in  his  plays,  are  154^  in  number.  They  are 
usually  divided  into  two  groups  or  sequences.  The 
first  sequence  consists  of  numbers  1-126  (according  to 
the  original  edition) ;  and  most  of  them  are  unques- 
tionably addressed  to  a  man.  The  second  sequence 
contains  numbers  127-154,  and  the  majority  of  these 
are  clearly  written  to  a  woman.  There  are  a  few  in 
both  groups  which  do  not  show  clearly  the  sex  of  the 
person  addressed,  and  also  a  few  which  are  not  ad- 
dressed to  any  one. 

1  See  p.  113. 

2  Including  at  least  three  which  do  not  have  in  all  respects  the 
regular  sonnet  form. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     67 

Beyond  some  vague  guesses,  we  have  no  idea  as  to 
the  identity  of  the  "  dark  lady  "  who  inspired  most  of 
the  last  twenty-eight  sonnets.  Somewhat  less  uncer- 
tainty surrounds  the  man  to  whom  the  poet  speaks  in 
the  first  sequence.  A  not  improbable  theory  is  that 
he  was  the  Earl  of  Southampton  already  mentioned, 
although  this  cannot  be  considered  as  proved.^  The 
chief  arguments  which  point  to  Southampton  are: 
(a)  That  Southampton  had  already  dedicated  Venus 
and  Adonis  and  Lucrece  to  him ;  (Jb)  that  he  was  re- 
garded at  that  time  as  a  patron  of  poets ;  (c)  that 
the  statements  about  this  unnamed  friend,  his  reluc- 
tance to  marry,  his  fair  complexion  and  personal 
beauty,  his  mixture  of  virtues  and  faults,  fit  South- 
ampton better  than  any  other  man  of  that  period 
whom  we  have  any  cause  to  associate  with  Shake- 
speare; and  (d)  that  he  was  the  only  patron  of 
Shakespeare's  early  years  known  to  us,  and  was 
warmly  interested  in  the  poet. 

The  literary  value  of  the  different  sonnets  varies  con- 
siderably.    When  an  author  is  writing  a  fashionable 

1  Southampton's  chief  rival  for  this  position  in  the  opinion  of 
scholars  has  been  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke.  One  point 
in  his  favor  has  been  that  the  initials  W.  H.  (supposed  to  stand  for 
William  Herbert)  are  given  as  those  of  the  person  to  whom  the 
dedication  of  the  volume  was  addressed  by  its  publisher.  Mr. 
Sidney  Lee  thinks,  however,  that  this  is  a  dedication  by  the  printer 
to  the  printer's  friend,  not  by  Shakespeare  to  Shakespeare's  friend,  — 
a  possible,  though  not  wholly  convincing,  explanation.  The  First 
Folio  was  dedicated  to  Herbert  after  Shakespeare's  death,  but  we 
have  no  evidence  that  the  two  men  were  intimate  friends  while  liv- 
ing. Meres  mentions  the  sonnets  of  Shakespeare  in  1598,  so  part  of 
them  at  least  must  have  been  written  before  that  year;  but  Her- 
bert did  not  have  a  permanent  residence  in  London  until  1598,  and 
was  then  only  eighteen  years  old. 


68      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

form  of  verse,  he  is  apt  to  become  more  or  less  imita- 
tive and  artificial  at  times,  saying  things  merely  be- 
cause it  is  the  vogue  to  say  them ;  and  Shakespeare 
here  cannot  be  wholly  acquitted  of  this  fault.  But  at 
other  times  he  speaks  from  heart  to  heart  with  a 
depth  of  real  emotion  and  wealth  of  vivid  expression 
which  has  given  us  some  of  the  noblest  poetry  in  the 
language. 

Another  question,  more  difficult  to  settle  than  the 
literary  value  of  these  poems,  is  their  value  as  a  reve- 
lation of  Shakespeare's  own  life.  If  we  could  take  in 
earnest  everything  which  is  said  in  the  sonnets,  we 
should  learn  a  great  many  facts  about  the  man  who 
wrote  them.  But  modern  scholarship  seems  to  feel 
more  and  more  that  we  cannot  take  all  their  statements 
literally.  We  must  remember  here  again  that  Shake- 
speare says  many  things  because  it  was  the  fashion  in 
his  day  for  sonnetteers  to  say  them.  For  example,  he 
gives  some  eloquent  descriptions  of  the  woes  of  old 
age ;  but  we  know  that  contemporary  poets  lamented 
about  old  age  when  they  had  not  yet  reached  years  of 
discretion ;  and  consequently  we  are  not  at  all  convinced 
that  Shakespeare  was  either  really  old  or  prematurely 
aged.  Such  considerations  need  not  interfere  with  our 
enjoyment  of  the  poetry,  for  the  author's  imagination 
may  have  made  a  poetical  fancy  seem  real  to  him  as  he 
wrote ;  but  they  certainly  do  not  lessen  our  doubts  in 
regard  to  the  value  of  the  sonnets  as  autobiography.  The 
majority  of  the  sonnets,  at  least,  cannot  be  said  to  throw 
any  light  on  Shakespeare's  life. 

There  are,  however,  six  sonnets,  connected  with  each 
other  in  subject,  which,  more  definitely  than  any  of 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     69 

the  others,  shadow  forth  a  real  event  in  the  poet's  life. 
These  are  numbers  XL,  XLI,  XLII,  CXXXIII, 
CXXXIV,  CXLTV.  They  seem  to  show  that  a 
woman  whom  the  poet  loved  had  forsaken  him  for  the 
man  to  whom  the  sonnets  are  written ;  and  that  the 
poet  submits  to  this,  owing  to  his  deep  friendship  for 
the  man.     Two  of  these  sonnets  are  given  below. 

SONNET  CXLIV 

"  Two  loves  I  have  of  comfort  and  despair, 
Which  like  two  spirits  do  suggest  me  still : 
The  better  angel  is  a  man  right  fair, 

The  worser  spirit  a  woman  colour'd  ill. 
To  win  me  soon  to  hell,  my  female  evil| 

Tempteth  my  better  angel  from  my  side, 
And  would  corrupt  my  saint  to  be  a  devil, 
j  Wooing  his  purity  with  her  foul  pride. 

And  whether  that  my  angel  be  turn'd  fiend 
/  Suspect  I  may,  yet  not  directly  tell : 

But  being  both  from  me,  both  to  each  friend, 

I  guess  one  angel  in  another's  hell : 
Yet  this  shall  I  ne'er  know,  but  live  in  doubt, 
Till  my  bad  angel  fire  my  good  one  out." 

SONNET  XLI 

"These  pretty  wrongs  that  liberty  commits, 

When  I  am  sometime  absent  from  thy  heart, 
Thy  beauty  and  thy  years  full  well  befits, 

For  still  temptation  follows  where  thou  art. 
Gentle  thou  art,  and  therefore  to  be  won. 

Beauteous  thou  art,  therefore  to  be  assailed  ; 
And  when  a  woman  woos,  what  woman's  son 

Will  sourly  leave  her  till  she  have  prevailed  ? 
Ay  me  !  but  yet  thou  mightst  my  seat  forbear. 

And  chide  thy  beauty  and  thy  straying  yoiith, 
Who  lead  thee  in  their  riot  even  there 


70      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Where  thou  art  forced  to  break  a  twofold  truth, 
Hers,  by  thy  beauty  tempting  her  to  thee, 
Thine,  by  thy  beauty  being  false  to  me." 

Again,  in  Sonnet  CX,  we  find  an  allusion  to  the  dis- 
tasteful nature  of  the  actor's  profession  which  seems 
to  ring  sincere.  Thus  in  a  few  cases  Shakespeare  may 
be  giving  us  glimpses  into  his  real  heart ;  but  in  general 
the  sentiments  expressed  in  his  sonnets  could  be  ex- 
plained as  due  to  the  literary  conventions  of  this  time. 

Other  Poems.  —  The  two  narrative  poems  and  the 
sonnets  make  up  most  of  Shakespeare's  nondramatic 
poetry.  A  word  may  be  added  about  some  other 
scattered  bits  of  verse  which  are  connected  with  his 
name.  In  1599  an  unscrupulous  publisher,  named 
William  Jaggard,  brought  out  a  book  of  miscellaneous 
poems  by  various  authors,  called  The  Passionate  Pil- 
grim. Since  Shakespeare  was  a  popular  writer,  his 
name  was  sure  to  increase  the  sale  of  any  book ;  so 
Jaggard,  with  an  advertising  instinct  worthy  of  a  later 
age,  coolly  printed  the  whole  thing  as  the  work  of 
Shakespeare.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  only  a  few  short 
pieces  were  by  him ;  and  were  probably  stolen  from 
some  private  manuscript. 

In  1601  a  poem.  The  Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,  was 
also  printed  as  his  in  an  appendix  to  a  longer  poem  by 
another  man.  We  cannot  trust  the  printer  when  he 
signs  it  with  Shakespeare's  name,  and  we  have  no 
other  evidence  about  its  authorship  ;  but  the  majority 
of  scholars  believe  it  to  be  genuine.  Another  poem, 
A  Lover's  Complaint,  which  was  printed  in  the  same 
volume  with  the  sonnets  in  1609,  is  of  distinctly  less 
merit  and  probably  spurious. 


SHAKESPEARE'S  NONDRAMATIC  WORKS     71 

Lastly,  the  short  poems  incorporated  in  the  plays  de- 
serve brief  notice.  In  a  way  they  are  part  of  the  plots 
in  which  they  are  embedded ;  but  they  may  also  be 
considered  as  separate  lyrics.  Several  sonnets  and 
verses  in  stanza  form  occur  in  Romeo  and  Juliet  and 
in  the  early  comedies.  Three  of  these  were  printed 
as  separate  poems  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim.  Far 
more  important  than  the  above,  however,  are  the  songs 
which  are  scattered  through  all  the  plays  early  and 
late.  Their  merit  is  of  a  supreme  quality  ;  some  of  the 
most  famous  musical  composers,  inspired  by  his  works, 
have  graced  them  with  admirable  music.  One  of  the 
most  attractive  features  in  his  lyrics  is  their  sponta- 
neous ease  of  expression.  They  seem  to  lilt  into  music 
of  their  own  accord,  as  naturally  as  birds  sing.  The 
best  of  these  are  found  in  the  comedies  of  the  Second 
Period  and  in  the  romantic  plays  of  the  Fourth.  "  Sigh 
no  more,  ladies,  sigh  no  more "  in  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing;  "Blow,  blow,  thou  winter  wind  "  in  As  You 
Like  it;  "  Hark,  hark,  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings  " 
in  Cymbeline;  and  "Full  fathom  five  thy  father  lies" 
in  The  Tempest,  —  these  and  others  like  them  show 
that  the  author,  though  primarily  a  dramatist,  could 
be  among  the  greatest  of  song  writers  when  he  tried. 

The  following  lines  taken  from  the  little-read  play. 
The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  may  serve  to  illustrate 
the  perfection  of  the  Shakespearean  lyric. 

SONG 

Who  is  Sylvia  ?  what  is  she, 
That  all  our  swains  commend  her  ? 

Holy,  fair,  and  wise  is  she  ; 
The  heaven  such  grace  did  lend  her, 

That  she  might  admired  be. 


72      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Is  she  kind  as  she  is  fair  ? 

For  beauty  lives  with  kindness  : 
Love  doth  to  her  eyes  repair 

To  help  him  of  his  blindness, 
And  being  helped,  inhabits  there. 

Then  to  Sylvia  let  ns  sing, 

That  Sylvia  is  excelling  ; 
She  excels  each  mortal  thing 

Upon  the  dull  earth  dwelling ; 
To  her  let  us  garlands  bring. 

Sucli  are  Shakespeare's  nondramatic  writings.  Two 
narrative  poems  with  the  faults  of  youth  but  with 
many  redeeming  virtues ;  one  hundred  and  fifty-four 
sonnets,  very  unequal  in  merit  but  touching  at  their 
best  the  high- water  mark  of  English  verse ;  a  few  stray 
fragments  of  disputed  authorship  and  doubtful  value; 
and  finally  a  handful  of  scattered  songs,  short,  but  al- 
most perfect  of  their  kind,  —  this  is  what  we  have 
outside  of  the  plays.  Neither  in  quantity  nor  quality 
can  this  work  compare  with  the  poetic  value  of  the 
great  dramas ;  but  had  it  been  written  by  any  other 
man,  we  should  have  thought  it  wonderful  enough. 

On  the  sonnets,  the  appendix  to  Mr.  Sidney  Lee's  book,  A  Life 
of  William  Shakespeare^  1909,  is  particularly  valuable. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   SEQUENCE    OF    SHAKESPEARE' S    PLATS 

The  most  profitable  method  of  studying  any  writer 
is  to  take  up  his  works  in  the  order  in  which  they 
were  written.  More  and  more  this  method  is  being 
adopted  toward  all  authors,  ancient  and  modern,  Virgil 
or  Milton,  Dante  or  Tennyson.  "We  are  thus  enabled 
to  trace  the  gradual  growth  of  the  poet's  mind  from 
one  production  to  another,  —  his  constant  increase  in 
skill,  in  judgment,  in  knowledge  of  mankind.  The 
great  characteristic  of  the  genius  is,  not  simply  that 
he  knows  more  than  other  men  at  first,  but  that  he 
has  in  him  such  vast  possibilities  of  growth,  of  improv- 
ing with  time,  and  learning  by  his  own  mistakes.  Con- 
sequently, it  is  very  important  to  know  that  a  certain 
play  or  poem  is  faulty  because  it  was  its  author's  first 
crude  attempt ;  that  a  second  is  better  because  it  was 
written  five  years  later  in  the  light  of  added  experience ; 
and  that  a  third  is  better  still  because  it  came  ten 
years  after  the  second,  at  the  climax  of  the  writer's 
powers. 

Besides  showing  the  author's  growth,  this  method 
also  shows  his  relation  to  the  great  literary  movements 
of  his  time.  As  fashions  in  dress  and  sports  keep 
shifting,  fashions  in  literature  are  changing  just  as 
constantly,  and  the  dominant  type  may  alter  two  or 
73 


74      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

three  times  during  one  man's  life.  If  an  author 
changes  to  meet  these  demands,  it  is  important  to 
know  that  one  of  his  plays  was  merry  comedy  because 
written  at  a  time  when  merry  comedies  filled  all  the 
playhouses  ;  and  that  another  is  sober  tragedy  because 
composed  while  most  of  the  theaters  were  acting  and 
demanding  sober  tragedy. 

Now  Shakespeare  not  only  improved  a  great  deal 
while  composing  his  plays,  but  also  conformed,  to 
some  extent  at  least,  to  the  different  tastes  of  his 
audience  at  different  periods  of  his  life.  Hence,  a 
knowledge  of  the  order  in  which  his  plays  were  written 
is  very  valuable,  and  should  form  the  first  step  in  a 
careful  study  of  his  writings. 

Unfortunately,  when  we  attempt  to  arrange  Shake- 
speare's plays  in  chronological  order,  we  encounter 
many  practical  difficulties  in  finding  just  what  this 
order  is.  We  know  that  Tennyson  developed  a  great 
deal  as  a  poet  between  the  ages  of  eighteen  and  thirty- 
three;  and  we  can  show  this  by  pointing  to  four  suc- 
cessive volumes  of  his  poems,  published  respectively 
at  the  ages  of  eighteen,  twenty-one,  twenty-three,  and 
thirty-three,  and  each  rising  in  merit  above  the  one 
before  it.  We  know  definitely  in  what  order  these 
volumes  come,  for  we  find  on  the  title-page  of  each  the 
date  when  it  was  printed.  But  scarcely  half  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  printed  in  this  way  during  his  life. 
The  others,  some  twenty  in  all,  are  found  only  in  one 
big  folio  volume  which  gives  no  hint  of  their  proper 
order  or  year  of  composition,  and  which  bears  on  its 
title-page  the  date  of  the  printing,  1623,  seven  years 
after  Shakespeare  died.     Many  plays,  too,  published 


SEQUENCE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      75 

early,  were  written  some  years  before  publication, 
so  that  the  date  of  printing  on  the  flyleaf  of  the 
quarto,  even  where  a  quarto  exists,  simply  shows  that 
the  play  was  written  sometime  before  that  year  but 
does  not  tell  at  all  how  long  before.  How,  then,  are 
we  to  trace  Shakespeare's  growth  from  year  to  year, 
through  his  successive  dramas,  when  the  quartos  help 
us  so  little  and  when  the  majority  of  these  dramas  are 
piled  before  us  in  one  volume  by  the  editors  of  the 
First  Folio,  without  a  word  of  explanation  as  to  which 
plays  are  early  attempts  and  which  mature  work  ? 

At  first  sight  the  above  problem  seems  almost  hope- 
less. The  researches  of  scholars  for  over  a  century, 
however,  have  gathered  together  a  mass  of  evidence 
which  determines  pretty  accurately  the  order  in 
which  these  different  plays  were  written. 

This  evidence  is  of  two  kinds,  external  and  internal. 
By  external  evidence  we  mean  that  found  outside  of 
the  play,  references  to  it  in  other  books  of  the  time, 
and  similar  material.  By  internal  evidence  we  mean 
that  found  inside  of  the  play  itself. 

External  Evidence.  —  This  is  of  several  kinds.  In 
the  first  place,  every  play  which  was  to  be  printed  had 
to  be  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register,  and  all  these 
entries  are  dated.  Hence  we  know  that  certain  plays 
were  prepared  for  publication  by  the  time  mentioned. 
For  instance,  "  A  Book  called  Antony  and  Cleopatra  " 
was  entered  May  20,  1608 ;  and  although  apparently 
the  book  was  not  finally  printed  at  that  time,  and  al- 
though our  only  copy  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  is  that 
in  the  Folio  of  1623,  yet  we  feel  reasonably  certain  from 
this  entry  that  this  play  must  have  been  written  either 


76     AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

in  1608  or  earlier.  In  addition  to  tlie  record  of  the 
Stationers'  Register,  we  have  the  dates  on  the  title- 
pages  of  such  plays  as  appeared  in  Quarto.  These 
evidences,  it  must  be  remembered,  determine  only  the 
latest  possible  date  for  the  play,  as  many  were  written 
long  before  they  were  printed,  or  even  entered. 

Again,  other  men  sometimes  used  in  their  books 
expressions  borrowed  from  Shakespeare  or  remarks 
which  sound  like  allusions  to  something  of  his. 
Here,  if  we  know  the  date  of  the  other  man's  book, 
we  learn  that  the  play  of  Shakespeare  from  which  he 
borrowed  must  have  been  in  existence  before  that  date. 
Thus,  when  the  poet  Barksted  prints  a  poem  in 
1607  and  borrows  a  passage  in  it  from  Measure  for 
Measure,  we  conclude  that  Measure  for  Measure  must 
have  been  produced  before  1607,  or  Barksted  could 
not  have  copied  from  it.  This  form  of  evidence  has 
its  dangers,  since  occasionally  we  cannot  tell  whether 
Shakespeare  borrowed  from  the  other  man  or  the 
other  man  from  him ;  nevertheless  it  is  often  valuable. 

Furthermore,  we  sometimes  find  in  contemporary 
books  or  papers,  which  are  dated,  an  account  of  the 
acting  of  some  play.  A  law  student  named  John 
Manningham  left  a  diary  in  which  he  records  that  on 
February  2, 1602  he  saw  a  play  called  Twelfth  Night  or 
What  Tou  Will  in  the  Hall  of  the  Middle  Temple  ;  and 
his  account  of  the  play  shows  that  it  was  Shake- 
speare's. Dr.  Simon  Forman,  in  a  similar  diary,  de- 
scribes the  performance  of  three  Shakespearean  plays, 
two  of  the  accounts  being  dated.  Still  more  impor- 
tant in  this  class  is  the  famous  allusion,  already 
quoted,  by  Francis  Meres  in  his  PaUadis  Tamia,  a 


SEQUENCE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      77 

book  published  in  1598.  In  this  he  mentions  with 
high  praise  six  comedies  of  Shakespeare :  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  The  Comedy  of  Errors,  Lovers 
Labour's  Lost,  Lovers  Labour'' s  Won,^  A  Midsummer 
Nighfs  Dream,  and  TJie  Merchant  of  Venice  ;  and  six 
"  tragedies " :  Richard  II,  Richard  III,  Henry  IV, 
King  John,  Titus  Andronicus,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet.^ 
Hence,  we  know  that  all  these  plays  were  written  and 
acted  somewhere  before  1598,  although  three  of  them 
did  not  appear  in  print  until  1623. 

The  above  list  does  not  exhaust  all  the  forms  of 
external  evidence,  but  merely  shows  its  general 
nature.  External  evidence,  as  can  be  seen,  is  not 
something  mysterious  and  peculiar,  but  simply  an 
application  of  common  sense  to  the  problem  in  hand. 

Frequently  two  pieces  of  external  evidence  will  ax5- 
complish  what  neither  one  could  do  alone.  Often  one 
fact  will  show  that  a  play  came  somewhere  before  a  cer- 
tain date,  but  not  show  how  long  before,  and  another 
will  prove  that  the  play  came  after  another  date,  without 
telling  how  long  after.  For  example,  King  Lear  was 
written  before  1606,  for  we  have  a  definite  statement 
that  it  was  performed  then.  It  was  written  after  1603, 
for  it  borrowed  material  from  a  book  printed  in  that 
year.  This  method  of  hemming  in  a  play  between  its 
earliest  and  its  latest  possible  date  is  common  and 
useful,  both  with  Shakespeare  and  with  other  writers. 

Internal  Evidence.  —  By  the  above  methods  a  few 
plays  have  been  dated  quite  accurately,  and  many 
others  confined  between  limits  only  two  or  three  years 

1  This  play  is  either  lost,  or  preserved  under  another  title. 

2  Quoted  in  full  in  Chapter  I,  p.  10. 


78      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

apart.  But  many  plays  are  still  dated  very  vaguely, 
and  some  are  not  dated  at  all.  For  further  results  we 
must  fall  back  on  internal  evidence.  The  first,  though 
by  no  means  the  most  important,  form  of  this  consists 
of  allusions  within  the  play  to  contemporary  events.  If  a 
boy  should  read  in  an  old  diary  of  his  grandmother's 
that  she  had  just  heard  of  the  fight  at  Gettysburg,  he 
would  feel  certain  that  the  words  were  written  a  few 
days  after  that  great  battle,  even  if  there  were  no 
date  anywhere  in  the  manuscript.  In  the  same  way, 
when  the  Prologue  of  Shakespeare's  Heiiry  V  alludes 
to  the  fact  that  Elizabeth's  general  (the  Earl  of  Essex) 
is  in  Ireland  quelling  a  rebellion,  we  know  that  this 
was  written  between  April  and  September  of  1599,  the 
period  during  which  Essex  actually  was  in  Ireland. 
Similarly,  certain  details  in  TJie  Tempest  appear  to 
have  been  borrowed  from  accounts  of  the  wreck  of 
Sir  George  Somers's  ship  in  1609.  As  Shakespeare 
could  not  have  borrowed  from  these  accounts  before 
they  existed,  he  must  have  written  his  comedy  some- 
time after  1609.^ 

But  the  main  form  of  internal  evidence,  what  is 
usually  meant  by  that  term,  is  the  testimony  in  the 
character  and  style  of  the  plays  themselves  as  to 
the  maturity  of  the  man  who  wrote  them.  Just  as  the 
stump  of  a  tree  sawn  across  shows  its  age  by  its 
successive  rings  of   growth,   so   a    poem,  if  carefully 

1  This  form  of  evidence  is  usually  weak  and  unreliable.  Most  of 
the  supposed  allusions  are  much  more  vague  than  the  two  given. 
Where  there  have  been  similar  events  in  history,  the  allusion  might 
be  to  one  which  we  had  forgotten  when  we  thought  it  was  to  a 
similar  one  which  we  knew. 


SEQUENCE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      79 

examined,  shows  the  rings  of  growth  in  the  author's 
style  of  thought  and  expression. 

The  simplest  and  most  tangible  form  of  this  evidence 
is  that  which  is  found  in  meter.  If  we  read  in  order 
of  composition  those  plays  which  we  have  already 
succeeded  in  dating,  we  shall  find  certain  habits  of 
versification  steadily  growing  on  the  author,  as  play 
succeeded  play. 

In  the  first  place,  most  of  the  lines  in  the  early 
plays  are  '  end-stopped ' ;  that  is,  the  sense  halts  at  the 
close  of  each  line  with  a  resulting  pause  in  reading. 
In  the  later  plays  the  sense  frequently  runs  over  from 
one  line  into  another,  producing  what  is  called  a  *  run- 
on  '  line  instead  of  an  '  end-stopped '  one.  By  comparing 
the  following  passages,  the  first  of  which  contains 
nothing  but  end-stopped  lines  and  the  second  several 
run-on  lines,  the  reader  can  easily  see  the  difference. 

(a)  From  an  early  play  :  — 

"  I  from  my  mistress  come  to  you  in  post : 
If  I  return,  I  shall  be  post  indeed, 
For  she  will  score  your  fault  upon  my  pate. 
Methinks  your  maw,  like  mine,  should  be  your  clock. 
And  strike  you  home  without  a  messenger." 

—  Comedy  of  Errors^  I,  ii,  63-67. 

(6)  From  a  late  play :  — 

"  Mark  your  divorce,  young  sir,     [end-stopped] 
Whom  son  I  dare  not  call.    Thou  art  too  base     [run-on] 
To  be  acknowledg'd.    Thou,  a  sceptre's  heir,     [end-stopped] 
That  thus  affects  a  sheep-hook  !    Thou  old  traitor, 
[end-stopped] 


80      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

I  am  sorry  that  by  hanging  thee  I  can     [run-on] 

But  shorten  your  life  one  week.    And  thou,  fresh  piece 

[run-on] 
Of  excellent  witchcraft,  who  of  force  must  know 

[end-stopped] 
The  royal  fool  thou  cop'st  with  ...  — '* 

—  Winter's  Tale,  IV,  iv,  427-434. 

Since  Shakespeare  keeps  constantly  increasing  his 
use  of  run-on  lines  in  plays  for  which  dates  are  known, 
it  seems  reasonable  to  assume  that  he  did  this  in  all 
his  work,  that  it  was  a  habit  which  grew  on  him  from 
year  to  year.  Hence,  if  we  sort  out  his  plays  in  order, 
putting  those  with  the  fewest  run-on  lines  first  and 
those  with  the  greatest  number  last,  we  shall  have 
good  reason  for  believing  that  this  represents  roughly 
the  order  in  which  they  were  written. 

A  second  form  of  metrical  evidence  is  found  in  the 
proportion  of  '  masculine '  and  '  feminine '  endings  in 
the  verse.  A  line  has  a  masculine  ending  when  its  last 
syllable.^  is  stressed;  when  it  ends,  for  example,  on 
words  or  phrases  like  beJiokV,  control',  no  more',  begone'. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  last  stressed  syllable  of  the 
line  is  followed  by  an  unstressed  one,  the  two  together 
are  called  a  feminine  ending.  Instances  of  this  would 
be  lines  ending  in  such  words  or  phrases  as,  unho'/lyy 
forgive'  /me,  benight' fed.  Notice  the  difference  be- 
tween them  in  the  following  passage:  — 

"  Our  revels  now  are  ended.     These  our  actors     [feminine] 
As  I  foretold  you,  were  all  spirits,  and     [masculine] 
Are  melted  into  air,  into  thin  air ;     [masculine] 
And,  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  this  vision,     [feminine] 
The  cloud-capp'd  towers,  the  gorgeous  palaces,     [feminine] 


SEQUENCE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS     81 

The  solemn  temples,  the  great  globe  itself,     [masculine] 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve,     [masculine] 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded,     [feminine] 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind." 

—  Tempest,  IV,  i,  147-166. 

In  the  main,  although  with  some  exceptions,  the 
number  of  feminine  endings,  like  the  number  of  run-on 
lines,  increases  as  the  plays  become  later  in  date. 

A  third  form  of  ending,  which  practically  does  not 
appear  at  all  in  the  early  plays,  and  which  recurs 
with  increasing  frequency  in  the  later  ones,  is  what  is 
called  a  *  weak  ending.'  ^  This  occurs  whenever  a  run- 
on  line  ends  in  a  word  which  according  to  the  meter 
fieeds  to  be  stressed;  and  accordiagJsLthe  sense  ought 
not  to  be.  Here  there  is  a  clash  between  meter  and 
meaning,  and  the  reader  compromises  by  making  a 
pause  before  the  last  syllable  instead  of  emphasizing 
the  syllable  itself.  Below  are  two  examples  of  weak 
endings :  — 

*'  It  should  the  good  ship  so  have  swallowed,  and 
The  fraughting  souls  within  her.'* 

"  I  will  rend  an  oak 
And  peg  thee  in  his  knotty  entrails  till 
Thou  hast  howled  away  twelve  winters." 

Lastly,  we  have  the  evidence  of  rime.  Run-on 
lines,  feminine  endings,  and  weak  endings  constantly 
increase  as  Shakespeare  grows  older.  Rime,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  general  decreases.     The  early  plays  are 

1  Mr.  Ingram  makes  a  distinction  between  "  light "  and  ' '  weak  " 
endings.    Both  are  classed  together  as  weak  endings  above.    The 
distinction  seems  to  us  too  subtle  for  any  but  professional  students. 
Q 


82      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

full  of  it ;  the  later  ones  have  very  little.  It  does  not 
follow  that  the  chronological  order  of  the  individual 
plays  could  be  exactly  determined  by  their  percentage 
of  riming  lines,  for  subject  matter  makes  a  great 
difference.  In  a  staged  fairy  story,  like  A  Midsum- 
mer Night's  Dream,  the  poet  would  naturally  fall  into 
couplets.  But,  other  things  being  equal,  a  large 
amount  of  rime  is  always  a  sign  of  early  work. 
This  is  especially  true  when  the  rimes  occur,  not  in 
pairs,  but  in  quatrains  or  sonnet  forms,  or  (as  they 
sometimes  do  in  the  first  comedies)  in  scraps  of  sing- 
song doggerel. 

Such  is  the  internal  evidence  from  the  various 
changes  in  versification.  Its  value,  as  must  always 
be  remembered,  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  results  of 
these  different  tests  in  the  main  agree  with  each  other 
and  with  such  external  evidence  as  we  have. 

Then,  wholly  aside  from  metrical  details,  there  is  a 
large  amount  of  internal  evidence  of  other  kinds,  —  evi- 
dence which  cannot  be  measured  by  the  rule  of  thumb, 
but  which  every  intelligent  reader  must  notice.  We 
feel  instinctively  that  one  play  mirrors  the  views  and 
emotions  of  youth,  another  those  of  middle  age.  A 
man^s  face  does  not  change  more  between  twenty-five 
and  forty  than  his  mind  changes  during  the  same  in- 
terval; and  the  difference  between  his  thoughts  at 
those  periods  is  as  distinct  often  as  the  difference  be- 
tween the  rounded  lines  of  youth  and  the  stern  features 
of  middle  age.  This  is  a  subject  which  will  be  better 
understood  in  the  light  of  the  next  chapter. 

The  Order  of  the  Plays.  —  Upon  such  evidence  as  has 
been  described,  a  list  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  their 


SEQUENCE  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      83 

chronological  order  can  now  be  presented.  The  de- 
tails of  evidence  on  date  may  be  found  in  the  account 
of  the  plays  which  appears  in  Chapters  X-XIII. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost       .        .        .        .        .        .  1690-1591 

The  Comedy  of  Errors 1590-1591 

II  and  III  Henry  VI         .         .         .         .         .         .  1590-1592 

Richard  III 1592-1593 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona 1592 

King  John 1592-1593 

Richard  II        ........  1593-1594 

Titus  Andronicus 1593-1594 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream      .        .        .        .        .  1593-1595 

Romeo  and  Juliet 1591,  revised  1597 

The  Merchant  of  Venice 1594-1696 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 1596-1697 

I  Henry  IV 1597 

II  Henry  IV 1598 

Henry  V 1599 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 1599 

Much  Ado  about  Nothing 1699 

As  You  Like  It ■      .  1599-1600 

Julius  Caesar 1699-1601 

Twelfth  Night  ........  1601 

Troilus  and  Cressida 1602 

All's  kell  That  Ends  Well      .        .        .        .        .  1602 

Hamlet 1602,  1603-1604  (two  versions). 

Measure  for  Measure 1603 

Othello 1604 

King  Lear 1604-1605 

Macbeth 1605-1606 

Antony  and  Cleopatra 1607-1608 

Tiraon  of  Athens 1607-1608 

Pericles 1608 

Coriolanus        .         .         .         .  •      .        .        .         .  1609 

Cymbeline 1610 

The  Winter's  Tale   .        .        ...        .        .        .  1610-1611 


84      AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SHAKESPEARE 

The  Tempest 1611 

King  Henry  the  Eighth 1612-1613 

Among  the  many  books  and  articles  on  the  subject  of  this 
chapter,  the  following  may  be  mentioned :  Shakespeare  Manual 
by  F.  L.  Fleay  (Macmillan  and  Co.,  London,  1876)  ;  Shak- 
spere,  by  E.  Dowden  (American  Book  Co.,  New  York); 
Cartce  Shakespearianoe  by  D.  Sambert. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Shakespeare's  development  as  a  dramatist 

As  the  reader  will  remember,  our  main  aim  in  at- 
tempting to  date  Shakespeare's  plays  was  to  trace 
through  them  his  development  as  a  dramatist  and 
poet.  Just  as  the  successive  chambers  of  the  nautilus 
shell  show  the  stages  of  growth  of  its  dead  and  van- 
ished tenant,  so  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  show  how 

"  Each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  him  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast." 

The  great  thing  which  distinguishes  the  genius  from 
the  ordinary  man,  we  repeat,  is  his  power  of  constant 
improvement;  and  we  can  trace  this  improvement 
here  from  achievements  less  than  those  of  many  a 
modern  writer  up  to  the  noblest  masterpieces  of  all 
time. 

Much  of  the  material  connected  with  this  develop- 
ment has  already  been  discussed  in  another  connec- 
tion under  Internal  Evidence.  Internal  evidence, 
however,  that  one  play  is  later  than  another,  is  noth- 
ing else  than  the  marks  of  intellectual  growth  in 
the  poet's  mind  between  those  two  dates.  We  arrange 
the  plays  in  order  according  to  indications  of  intel- 
lectual growth,  just  as  one  could  fit  together  again  the 
broken  fragments  of  a  nautilus  shell,  guided  by  the 
relative  size  of  the  ever  expanding  chambers.  So,  in 
85 


86      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

discussing  Shakespeare's  development,  we  must  bring 
up  much  old  material,  examining  it  from  a  different 
point  of  view. 

Meter.  —  In  the  first  place,  the  poet  develops  won- 
derfully in  the  command  of  his  medium  of  expression ; 
that  is,  in  his  mastery  of  meter.     What  is  meant  by 
the  fact  that  as  Shakespeare  grew  older,  wiser,  more 
experienced,  he  used   more  run-on  lines,  more  weak 
endings,  more  feminine  endings?     Simply  this,  that 
by  means  of  these  devices  he  gained  more  variety  and 
expressiveness  in  his  verse.     A  passage  from  his  early 
y^work  (in  spite  of  much  that  is  fine)  with  every  ending 
^    alike  masculine  and  strong,  and  with  every  line  end- 
\   stopped,  harps  away  tediously  in  the  same  swing,  like 
\  one  lonely  instrument  on  one  monotonous  note.     His 
\ater  verse,  on  the  other   hand,  with  masculine   and 
feminine  endings,  weak  ones  and  strong,  end-stopped 
and  run-on  lines,  continually  relieving  each  other,  is 
like  the  blended  music  of  a  great  orchestra,  continu- 
ally varying,  now  stern,  now  soft,  in  harmony  with 
the  thought  it  expresses.     Below  are  given  two  pas- 
sages, the  first  from  an  early  play,  the  second  from  a 
late  one.     In  print  one  may  look  as  well  as  the  other ; 
but  if  one  reads  them  aloud,  he  will  see  in  a  moment 
how  much  more  variety  and  expressiveness  there  is  in 
the  second,  especially  for  the  purposes  of  acting. 

"  Urge  not  my  father's  anger,  Eglamour, 
But  think  upon  my  grief,  a  lady's  grief, 
And  on  the  justice  of  my  flying  hence, 
To  keep  me  from  a  most  unholy  match, 
Which  heaven  and  fortune  still  rewards  with  plagues. 
I  do  desire  thee,  even  from  a  heart 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  87 

As  full  of  sorrows  as  the  sea  of  sands, 
To  bear  me  company  and  go  with  me  ; 
If  not,  to  hide  what  I  have  said  to  thee, 
That  I  may  venture  to  depart  alone." 

—  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  IV,  ill,  27-36. 

"By  whose  aid. 
Weak  masters  though  ye  be,  I  have  bedimm'd 
The  noontide  sun,  call'd  forth  the  mutinous  wdnds, 
And  'twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azur'd  vault 
Set  roaring  war ;  to  the  dread  rattling  thunder 
Have  I  given  fire,  and  rifted  Jove's  stout  oak 
With  his  own  bolt ;  the  strong-bas'd  promontory 
Have  I  made  shake,  and  by  the  spurs  plucked  up 
The  pine  and  cedar ;  graves  at  my  command 
Have  wak'd  their  sleepers,  op'd,  and  let  'em  forth 
By  my  so  potent  art.    But  this  rough  magic 
I  here  abjure,  and,  when  I  have  requir'd 
Some  heavenly  music,  which  even  now  I  do, 
To  work  mine  end  upon  their  senses  that 
This  airy  charm  is  for,  I'll  break  my  staff. 
Bury  it  certain  fathoms  in  the  earth. 
And  deeper  than  did  ever  plummet  sound 
I'll  drown  my  book." 

—  Tempest,  V,  1,  40-57. 

The  same  reason  shows  why  Shakespeare  used  less 
and  less  rime  as  his  taste  and  experience  ripened. 
Rime  is  a  valuable  ornament  for  songs  and  lyric 
poetry  generally ;  but  from  poetry  which  is  actually 
to  be  acted  on  the  English  stage  it  takes  away  the 
most  indispensable  of  all  qualities,  the  natural,  life- 
like tone  of  real  speech.  Notice  this  in  the  difference 
between  the  two  extracts  below.  Observe  how  stilted 
and  artificial  the  first  one  seems;  and  see  how  the 
second  combines  the  melody  and  dignity  of  poetry 
with  the  simple  naturalness  of  living  language.  • 


88      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

*'This  fellow  pecks  up  wit  as  pigeons  pease, 
And  utters  it  again  when  God  doth  please. 
He  is  wit's  pedler,  and  retails  his  wares 
At  wakes  and  wassails,  meetings,  markets,  fairs  ; 
And  we  that  sell  by  gross,  the  Lord  doth  know, 
Have  not  the  grace  to  grace  it  with  such  show. 
This  gaUant  pins  the  wenches  on  his  sleeve  ; 
Had  he  been  Adam,  he  had  tempted  Eve." 

—  Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  V,  ii,  315-322. 

"  I  was  not  much  afeard  ;  for  once  or  twice 
I  was  about  to  speak  and  tell  him  plainly 
The  self-same  sun  that  shines  upon  his  court 
Hides  not  his  visage  from  our  cottage,  but 
Looks  on  all  alike.    Will't  please  you,  sir,  be  gone  ? 
I  told  you  what  would  come  of  this.     Beseech  you. 
Of  your  own  state  take  care.     This  dream  of  mine  — 
Being  now  awake,  I'll  queen  it  no  inch  farther. 
But  milk  my  ewes  and  weep." 

—  Winter's  Tale,  IV,  iv,  452-460. 

I  do  not  mean  to  imply  by  the  above  that  Shake- 
speare's early  verse  is  poor  according  to  ordinary  stand- 
ards. It  is  not ;  it  contains  much  that  is  fine.  But  it 
is  far  inferior  to  his  later  work,  and  it  is  inferior  in 
those  very  details  which  time  and  experience  alone  can 
teach. 

An  important  point  to  remember  is  that  while 
Shakespeare  was  growing  in  metrical  skill,  he  was  not 
growing  alone.  A  crowd  of  other  authors  around  him 
were  developing  in  a  similar  way ;  and  he  was  learning 
from  them  and  they  from  him.  The  use  of  blank  verse 
in  English  when  Shakespeare  began  to  write  was  a  com- 
paratively new  practice,  and,  like  all  new  inventions, 
for  a  time  it  was  only  imperfectly  understood.     Men 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  89 

had  to  learn  by  experiments  and  by  each  other's  suc- 
cesses and  failures,  just  as  men  in  recent  years  have 
learned  to  fly.  Shakespeare  surpassed  all  the  others, 
as  the  Wright  brothers  in  their  first  years  surpassed 
all  their  fellow-aeronauts ;  but  like  the  Wright  brothers 
he  was  only  part  of  a  general  movement.  Ko  other 
man  changed  as  much  as  he  in  one  lifetime,  but  the 
whole  system  of  dramatic  versification  was  changing. 

Taste.  —  But  wholly  aside  from  questions  of  meter, 
Shakespeare  improved  greatly  in  taste  and  judgment 
between  the  beginning  and  middle  of  his  career.  This 
is  shown  especially  in  his  humor.  To  the  young  man 
humor  means  nothing  but  the  cause  for  a  temporary 
laugh;  to  a  more  developed  mind  it  becomes  a  pleasant 
sunshine  that  lingers  in  the  memory  long  after  reading, 
and  interprets  all  life  in  a  manner  more  cheerful,  sym- 
pathetic, and  sane.  The  early  comedies  give  us 
nothing  but  the  temporary  laugh ;  and  even  this  is  pro- 
duced chiefly  by  fantastic  situations  or  plays  on  words, 
clever  but  far-fetched,  puns  and  conceits  so  overworked 
that  their  very  cleverness  jars  at  times.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  great  humorous  characters  of  his  middle 
period,  like  Falstaff  and  Beatrice,  the  poet  is  opening 
up  to  us  new  vistas  of  quiet,  lasting  amusement  and 
indulgent  knowledge  of  our  imperfect  but  lovable 
fellow-men. 

The  same  growth  of  taste  is  shown  in  the  dramatist's 
increasing  tendency  to  tone  down  all  revolting  details 
and  avoid  flowery,  overwrought  rhetoric.  Nobody  knows 
whether  Shakespeare  wrote  all  of  Titus  Andronicus 
entire  or  simply  revised  it ;  but  we  feel  sure  that  the 
older  Shakespeare  would  have  been  unwilling,  even  as 


90     AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

a  reviser,  to  squander  so  much  that  is  beautiful  on  such 
an  orgy  of  blood  and  violence.  Romeo  and  Juliet  is 
full  of  beautiful  poetry ;  but  even  here  occasional  lapses 
show  the  undeveloped  taste  of  the  young  writer.  No- 
tice the  flowery  and  fantastic  imagery  in  the  following 
passage,  where  Lady  Capulet  is  praising  Paris,  her 
daughter's  intended  husband :  — 

**  Read  o'er  the  volume  of  young  Paris'  face 
And  find  delight  writ  there  with  beauty's  pen ; 
Examine  every  married  lineament 
And  see  how  one  another  lends  content, 
And  what  obscur'd  in  this  fair  volume  lies 
Find  written  in  the  m  argent  of  his  eyes. 
This  precious  book  of  love,  this  unbound  lover, 
To  beautify  him,  only  lacks  a  cover. 
The  fish  lives  in  the  sea,  and  'tis  much  pride 
For  fair  without  the  fair  within  to  hide. 
That  book  in  many's  eyes  doth  share  the  glory, 
That  in  gold  clasps  locks  in  the  golden  story." 

—  Borneo  and  Juliet^  I,  iii,  81-92. 

If  we  try  to  picture  to  ourselves  the  post-wedlock 
edition  of  Paris  described  above,  we  shall  see  how  a 
young  man's  imagination  may  run  away  with  his  judg- 
ment. There  are  passages  in  this  play  as  good,  perhaps, 
as  anything  which  the  author  ever  wrote ;  but  if  we 
compare  such  fantastic  imagery  with  the  uniform  ex- 
cellence of  the  later  masterpieces,  we  shall  see  how 
much  Shakespeare  unlearned  and  outgrew. 

Character  Study.  —  Still  more  significant  is  the  poet's 
development  in  the  conception  of  character.  In  no 
other  way,  probably,  does  an  observant  mind  change  and 
expand  so  much  as  in  this.  For  the  infant  all  men  fall 
into  two  very  simple  categories:  —  people  whom  he  likes 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  91 

and  people  whom  he  doesn't.  The  boy  of  ten  has  in- 
creased these  two  classes  to  six  or  eight.  The  young 
man  of  twenty  finds  a  few  more,  and  begins  to  suspect 
that  men  who  act  alike  may  not  have  the  same  motives 
and  emotions.  But  as  the  keen-eyed  observer  nears 
middle  age,  he  begins  to  realize  that  no  two  souls  are 
exact  duplicates  of  each  other;  and  that  behind  every 
human  eye  there  lies  an  undiscovered  country,  as 
mysterious,  as  fascinating,  as  that  which  Alice  found 
behind  the  looking-glass,  —  a  country  like,  and  yet 
unlike,  the  one  we  know,  where  dreams  grow  beautiful 
as  tropic  plants,  and  passions  crouch  like  wild  beasts 
in  the  jungle. 

Great  as  he  was,  Shakespeare  had  to  learn  this 
lesson  like  other  men ;  but  he  learned  it  much  better. 
In  Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  generally  considered  his 
earliest  play,  he  has  not  led  us  into  the  inner  selves 
of  his  men  and  women  at  all,  has  not  seemed  to  realize 
that  they  possess  inner  selves.  At  the  conclusion  we 
know  precisely  as  much  of  them  as  we  should  if  we 
had  met  them  at  a  formal  reception,  and  no  more.  The 
princess  is  pretty  and  clever  on  dress  parade ;  but  how 
does  the  real  princess  feel  when  parade  is  over  and 
she  is  alone  in  her  chamber  ?  The  later  Shakespeare 
might  have  told  us,  did  tell  us,  in  regard  to  more  than 
one  other  princess;  but  the  young  Shakespeare  has 
nothing  to  tell. 

Richard  III,  which  is  supposed  to  have  come  some 
three  years  later,  is  a  marked  advance  in  characteriza- 
tion, but  still  far  short  of  the  goal.  Here  the  drama- 
tist attempts,  indeed,  to  analyze  the  tyrant's  motives 
and  emotions ;  but  he  does  not  yet  understand  what 


92      AN   INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

lie  is  trying  to  explain,  and  for  that  reason  tlie  being 
whom  he  creates  is  portentous,  but  not  human.  To 
understand  this,  you  need  only  compare  Richard  with 
Macbeth.  In  Macbeth  we  have  a  host  of  different 
forces — ambition,  superstition,  poetry,  remorse,  vacil- 
lation, affection,  despair  —  all  struggling  together 
as  they  might  in  you  or  me;  and  it  is  this  mingling  of 
feelings  with  which  we  all  can  sympathize  that  makes 
him,  in  spite  of  all  his  crimes,  a  human  being  like  our- 
selves. But  in  Richard  there  is  no  human  complexity. 
His  is  the  fearful  simplicity  of  the  lightning,  the 
battering-ram,  the  earthquake,  forces  whose  achieve- 
ments are  terrible  and  whose  inner  existence  a  blank. 
Richard  hammers  his  bloody  way  through  life  like  the 
legendary  Iron  Man  with  his  flail,  awe-inspiring  as  a 
destructive  agency,  not  as  a  human  being. 

Two  or  three  years  later  we  find  Shakespeare  in  his 
conception  of  Shylock  capable  of  greater  things  as  a 
student  of  character.  In  this  pathetic,  lonely,  vindic- 
tive figure,  exiled  forever  from  the  warm  fireside  of 
human  friendship  by  those  inherent  faults  which  he 
can  no  more  change  than  the  tiger  can  change  his 
claws,  the  long  tragedy  which  accompanies  the  survi- 
val of  the  fittest  finds  a  voice.  Yet  even  in  Shylock 
the  dramatist  has  not  reached  his  highest  achievement 
in  character  study.  The  old  Jew  is  drawn  splendidly 
to  the  life,  but  he  is  a  comparatively  easy  character  to 
draw,  a  man  with  a  few  simple  and  prominent  traits. 
Depicting  such  a  man  is  like  drawing  a  pronounced 
Roman  profile,  less  difficult  to  do,  and  less  satisfactory 
when  done,  than  tracing  the  subdued  curves  of  a  more 
evenly  rounded  face.     Still  greater  will  be  the  triumph 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  93 

when  Shakespeare  can  draw  equally  true  to  life  a 
many-sided  man  or  woman,  in  whose  single  heart  all 
our  different  experiences  find  a  sympathetic  echo. 

And  this  final  triumph  is  not  long  in  coming.  Be- 
tween his  thirty-fourth  and  thirty-eighth  years,  in 
Falstaff  and  Hamlet  the  poet  produced  the  greatest 
comic  and  the  greatest  tragic  character  of  dramatic 
history.  The  man  who  has  read  Hamlet  understand- 
ingly  has  found  in  the  young  prince  a  lifelong  com- 
panion. Has  he  been  unjustly  treated  ?  Hamlet, 
too,  had  suffered  and  hated.  Has  he  loved  ?  So  had 
Hamlet.  Has  he  had  a  bosom  friend  ?  The  most  sacred 
and  beautiful  of  college  friendships  was  that  between 
Hamlet  and  Horatio.  Has  he  been  bored  by  some 
stupid  old  adviser  ?  So  had  Hamlet  by  Polonius  and 
similar  "  tedious  old  fools."  Has  he  been  thrilled  by 
some  beautiful  landscape  ?  Hamlet,  too,  had  admired 
"this  goodly  frame,  the  earth"  and  the  sky,  "that 
majestical  roof  fretted  with  golden  fire."  Has  he  had 
a  parent  whom  he  loved  and  admired  ?  So  had  Hamlet 
in  his  father.  Has  he  had  a  friend  for  whom  his  love 
was  mixed  with  shame?  So  felt  Hamlet  toward  his 
mother.  Has  he  felt  the  pride  of  a  great  deed  bravely 
accomplished  ?  So  did  Hamlet  in  dying.  Has  he  felt 
the  shame  and  remorse  of  a  duty  unperformed  ?  So 
did  Hamlet  while  his  father  was  still  unrevenged. 
Has  he  shuddered  at  the  mystery  of  death  ?  So  had 
Hamlet  shuddered  at  "that  undiscovered  country." 
Or  has  he  been  racked,  as  all  good  men  are  in  practi- 
cal life,  by  the  doubt  as  to  what  is  his  duty?  So 
had  Hamlet  been  racked  by  the  same  terrible  responsi- 
bility.    And  thus  we  might  go  on  indefinitely.    The 


94      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

experience  of  a  lifetime  is  packed  into  this  play. 
Shakespeare  never  surpassed  Hamlet,  though  he  wrote 
for  nine  or  ten  years  after;  but  when  he  had  once 
reached  this  high  level,  he  maintained  it,  with  only 
occasional  lapses,  to  the  end. 

Dramatic  Technique.  —  Lastly,  Shakespeare  developed 
greatly  in  dramatic  technique.  By  dramatic  technique 
we  mean  the  method  in  which  the  machinery  of  the 
story  is  handled.  The  dramatist,  to  do  his  duty  prop- 
erly, must  accomplish  at  least  five  things  at  once. 
He  must  make  his  play  lifelike  and  natural ;  he  must 
keep  his  hearers  well  informed  as  to  what  is  happening ; 
he  must  bring  in  different  events  after  each  other  in 
rapid  succession  to  hold  the  interest  of  his  audience ;  he 
must  make  the  different  characters  influence  each  other 
so  that  the  whole  becomes  one  connected  story,  not 
several  unrelated  ones  ;  and  he  must  make  the  audience 
feel  that  the  play  is  working  toward  a  certain  inevi- 
table end,  must  bring  it  to  that  end,  and  must  then 
stop.  The  lack  of  any  one  of  these  factors  may  make 
a  play  either  dull  or  disappointing.  It  takes  ability 
to  get  any  one  of  these  alone.  It  takes  years  of  train- 
ing before  even  a  born  genius  can  work  them  all  in 
together.  Of  course,  these  details  are  much  easier  to 
handle  in  dramatizing  some  subjects  than  others;  and 
we  find  Shakespeare  succeeding  comparatively  early 
in  easy  subjects  and  making  mistakes  later  in  harder 
ones ;  but,  on  the  whole,  in  dramatic  technique  as  in 
other  things,  his  history  is  one  of  increasing  power 
and  judgment. 

Here,  again,  as  in  his  metrical  development,  Shake- 
speare was  merely  one   leading  figure  in  a  popular 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  95 

movement.  Through  a  long  evolution  the  English 
drama  had  just  come  into  existence  when  he  began  to 
write.  There  were  no  settled  theories  about  this  new 
art,  no  results  of  long  experience  such  as  lie  at  the 
service  of  the  modern  dramatist.  All  men  were  ex- 
perimenting, and  Shakespeare  among  the  rest. 

His  early  play  of  Lovers  Labour's  Lost  has  already 
been  used  to  illustrate  lack  of  characterization.  In 
technique,  also,  in  spite  of  many  marks  of  natural 
brilliance,  it  shows  the  faults  of  the  beginner.  The 
story  in  the  first  three  acts  does  not  move  on  fast 
enough ;  there  is  a  lack  of  that  rapid  series  of  connected 
events  which  we  mentioned  above  and  which  adds  so 
much  to  the  interest  of  the  later  plays,  like  Macbeth. 
Likewise,  the  characters  in  the  prose  underplot  (except 
Costard)  have  too  little  connection  with  the  story  of  the 
king  and  his  friends.  In  very  badly  constructed  plays 
this  lack  of  connection  sometimes  goes  so  far  that  the 
main  and  under  plots  seem  like  two  separate  serial 
stories  in  a  magazine,  in  which  the  reader  alternates 
from  one  to  the  other,  but  never  thinks  of  them  as  one. 
This  obviously  is  bad,  for  just  when  the  reader  is  most 
interested  in  one,  he  is  interrupted  and  has  to  lay  it 
aside  for  the  other.  No  play  of  Shakespeare's  errs 
so  far  as  that ;  but  the  defect  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost 
is  similar  in  a  very  modified  form.  Neither  is  this 
comedy  as  successful  as  the  author's  later  plays  in 
preparing  us  for  a  certain  ending  as  the  inevitable 
outcome  and  then  placing  that  ending  before  us.  We 
are  led  to  expect  that  all  four  love  affairs  must  be 
successful,  and  shall  feel  disappointed  if  the  sympa- 
thetic dreams  which  we  have  woven  around  that  idea 


96      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

axe  not  satisfied.  Yet  the  play  ends  hurriedly  in  a 
way  which  leaves  us  all  in  doubt,  and  disappointed, 
like  guests  who  have  been  invited  to  a  wedding  and 
find  it  indefinitely  postponed.  There  is  a  wonderful 
amount  of  clever  dialogue  in  this  comedy,  but  its 
structure  shows  how  much  the  author  had  yet  to  learn. 

The  Two  Gentleman  of  Verona^  probably  written  a 
little  later,  shows  improvement,  but  by  no  means  per- 
fect mastery.  The  first  two  acts  still  drag,  although 
the  play  moves  more  rapidly  when  it  is  under  way. 
The  inability  to  lead  up  naturally  to  an  inevitable  end 
still  persists.  The  young  author,  well  as  he  has  man- 
aged the  middle  of  the  play,  does  not  wait  for  events 
to  take  their  logical  course.  He  winds  up  everything 
abruptly  like  a  man  who  has  just  changed  his  mind 
or  become  tired  of  his  task,  and  marries  the  most  lov- 
able girl  in  the  play  to  a  rascal  who  is  scarcely  given 
time  for  even  a  pretense  of  reformation. 

The  Merchant  of  Venice,  two  or  three  years  later, 
shows  a  great  advance  in  technique  as  in  other  ways. 
Notice  how  skillfully  the  dramatist  makes  the  different 
characters  all  influence  each  other's  lives,  so  that  the 
interest  in  one  becomes  the  interest  in  all.  There  is 
one  story  in  the  relations  of  Shy  lock  and  Antonio, 
another  in  the  love  affair  of  Lorenzo  and  Jessica,  and 
a  third  in  Bassanio's  courtship  of  Portia.  There  is 
also  a  fourth,  a  sequel  to  Bassanio's  courtship, 
in  the  trick  which  his  wife  plays  on  him  with  re- 
gard to  the  rings  after  they  are  married.  Yet  we 
never  feel  an  unpleasant  interruption  when  we  are 
stopped  in  one  story  and  started  in  one  of  the  others, 
because  the  interest  of  the  first  lives  on  in  the  second, 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  97 

owing  to  the  interrelation  of  the  people  taking  part  in 
both.  We  leave  Shy  lock's  story  to  take  up  Jessica's, 
but  Jessica  is  Shylock's  child,  and  our  interest  in  the 
fate  of  his  ducats  and  his  daughter,  which  began  in 
his  story,  goes  on  in  hers.  We  leave  Antonio's  story 
to  take  up  Bassanio's ;  but  Antonio's  story  was  that 
of  sacrifice  for  a  friend,  and  in  Bassanio's  we  see  the 
fruit  of  that  sacrifice  in  his  friend's  joy.  Moreover, 
all  four  of  the  above  threads  of  action  are  knotted  to- 
gether in  one  scene  where  Bassanio  chooses  the  right 
casket.  Of  the  swift  succession  of  exciting  scenes  of 
the  natural  way  in  which  these  lead  up  to  the  final 
end,  of  the  lifelike  truthfulness  with  which  each  little 
event  is  made  to  work  itself  out,  there  is  no  need  to 
speak  here. 

Though  Shakespeare  was  not  a  third  through  his 
literary  career  when  he  wrote  The  Merchant  of  Venice, 
he  had  by  this  time  mastered  the  technique  of  comedy ; 
and  we  need  trace  his  course  in  it  no  farther.  Much 
Ado  and  Twelfth  Night  somewhat  later,  and  The  Tem- 
pest long  years  after,  are  simply  repetitions  so  far  as 
technique  is  concerned,  of  this  early  triumph.  Let  us 
turn  now  from  comedy  to  those  plays  which  deal  with 
the  sterner  side  of  life.  Here  the  development  in 
technical  skill  is  similar,  but  much  slower,  requiring 
nearly  a  lifetime  before  it  reaches  perfection,  for  the 
poet  is  grappling  with  a  problem  so  difficult  that  it 
taxed  all  the  resources  of  his  great  genius. 

Before  1599  nearly  all  Shakespeare's  plays  which 
were  not  comedies  were  histories.  By  a  history  or 
chronicle  play  we  mean  a  play  which  pictures  some 
epoch  in  the  past  of  the  English  nation.     In  one  sense 


98      AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  word,  most  of  them  are  tragedies,  since  they 
frequently  result  in  death  and  disaster ;  but  they  are 
always  separated  as  a  class  from  tragedy  proper,  be- 
cause they  represent  some  great  event  in  English 
national  life  centering  around  some  king  or  leader ; 
while  tragedy  proper  deals  with  the  misfortunes  of 
some  one  man  in  any  country,  and  regards  him  as  an 
individual  rather  than  as  a  national  figure.  They  dif- 
fer also  in  purpose,  since  the  chronicle  play  was  in- 
tended to  appeal  to  Anglo-Saxon  patriotism,  the 
tragedy  to  our  sympathy  with  human  suffering  in 
general. 

The  first  and  crudest  of  Shakespeare's  histories 
written  at  about  the  same  time  as  his  first  comedy  is 
the  triple  play  of  Henry  VI}  We  should  hesitate  to 
judge  him  by  this,  since  he  wrote  it  only  in  part ;  but 
it  is  a  woefully  rambling  production  in  which  we  no 
sooner  become  interested  in  one  character  than  we  lose 
him,  and  are  asked  to  transfer  our  sympathies  to  an- 
other. Richard  III  is  a  great  step  forward  in  this 
respect ;  for  the  excitement  and  interest  focuses  unin- 
terruptedly on  the  one  central  figure ;  and  his  influence 
on  other  men  and  theirs  on  him  bind  all  the  events  of  the 
drama  into  one  coherent  whole.  Also,  it  moves  straight 
on  to  a  definite  end  which  we  know  and  wish  and  are 
prepared  for  beforehand.  We  feel,  even  in  the  midst 
of  his  success,  that  such  a  bloody  tyrant  cannot  be  tol- 
erated forever ;  and  like  men  in  a  tiger  hunt  we  thrill 
beforehand  at  the  dramatic  catastrophe  which  we  know 
is  coming.     Richard  III,  though  a  powerful  play,  is 

1  These  plays  are  throughout  designated  as  /,  //,  and  III  Henry 
VI. 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST  99 

still  crude  in  many  details.  The  scenes  where  Margaret 
curses  her  enemies,  though  strong  as  poetry,  lack  action 
as  drama.  In  a  wholly  different  way,  they  clog  the 
onward  movement  of  the  story  almost  as  much  as  some 
scenes  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost.  Then  again,  one  of  the 
most  important  requirements  for  good  technique  is  that 
everything  shall  be  true  to  life.  When  Anne,  for  the 
sake  of  a  little  bare-faced  flattery,  marries  a  man  whom 
she  loathes,  we  feel  that  no  real  woman  would  have 
done  this.  From  that  moment  Anne  becomes  a  mere 
paper  automaton  to  us,  and  we  can  no  longer  be  interested 
in  her  as  we  would  in  a  living  woman.  The  motiva- 
tion, as  it  is  called,  the  art  of  showing  adequately  why 
every  person  should  act  as  he  or  she  does,  is  sadly 
lacking. 

Moving  onward  a  few  years,  we  find  marked  improve- 
ment in  I  Henry  IV.  It  is  indeed  not  technically 
perfect,  —  in  fact,  Shakespeare  in  the  chronicle  play 
never  attained  what  seems  to  modern  students  tech- 
nical perfection,  —  but  its  minor  defects  are  thrown 
into  shadow  by  its  splendid  virtues.  The  three  stories 
of  Hotspur,  the  King,  and  the  Falstaff  group,  though 
partially  united  by  their  common  connection  with 
Prince  Hal,  do  not  blend  together  as  perfectly  as  the 
different  plots  in  Tlie  Merchant  of  Venice,  and  there  is 
some  truth  in  the  idea  that  the  play  has  four  heroes  in- 
stead of  one.  But  in  spite  of  this,  its  general  impres- 
sion as  a  great  panorama  of  English  life  is  remarkably 
clear  and  delightful;  and  it  improves  on  Richard  Illiii 
its  swift  succession  of  incident,  and  vastly  surpasses  it 
in  the  lifelike  truth  of  its  motivation. 

In  the  middle  of  his  career  Shakespeare   dropped 


100    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

the  chronicle  play,  and  instead  began  the  writing  of 
tragedies  proper.  He  carried  into  this,  however,  the 
lessons  learned  from  his  experience  with  histories,  and 
continued  to  improve.  Julius  Coesar  marks  the  tran- 
sition from  chronicle  play  to  tragedy.  The  lack  of 
close  connection  between  the  third  and  fourth  acts  and 
the  absence  of  one  central  hero  are  characteristic  de- 
fects of  the  chronicle  play  which  the  dramatist  had  not 
yet  outgrown.  Hamlet,  coming  next,  has  shaken  off 
all  the  lingering  relics  of  the  older  type.  Of  its  general 
excellence  there  is  no  need  to  speak.  Yet  even  in  Ham- 
let the  action  at  times  halts  and  becomes  disjointed. 
Coesar  and  Hamlet  are  great  plays,  the  latter,  perhaps, 
the  greatest  of  all  plays  ;  but,  transfigured  as  they  are 
by  genius,  they  show  that  in  the  dif&cult  problem  of 
tragic  technique  the  author  was  learning  still.  At  the 
age  of  forty,  approximately,  and  a  year  or  two  after 
Hamlet,  Shakespeare  produced  Othello,  the  most  perfect, 
although  not  necessarily  the  greatest,  of  all  his  great 
tragedies.  It  is  less  profoundly  reflective  than  Hamlet 
and  less  passionately  imaginative  than  King  Lear  or 
Macbeth;  but  no  other  of  his  masterpieces  shows  such 
perfect  balance  of  taste  and  judgment,  or  is  so  free 
from  any  jarring  note.  Hence,  through  the  histories 
and  tragedies  taken  together,  we  see  the  same  growth 
in  technical  skill  which  we  have  already  found  in  his 
comedies,  save  that  it  took  longer  here  because  the 
poet  was  working  in  a  more  difficult  field.  It  would 
not  be  true  to  say  that  each  play  up  to  Othello  is  superior 
to  its  immediate  predecessor  in  technique,  still  less 
that  it  is  so  in  absolute  merit;  but  the  general  upward 
tendency  is  there. 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST         101 

The  Four  Periods.  —  Such  was  Shakespeare's  develop- 
ment in  meter,  in  taste,  in  conception  of  character,  and 
in  dramatic  technique.  In  line  with  this  development, 
it  has  been  customary  to  divide  his  literary  career  into 
four  periods  and  his  plays  into  four  corresponding 
groups.  These  groups  or  periods  are  characterized 
partly  by  their  different  degrees  of  maturity,  but  more 
by  the  difference  in  the  character  of  the  plays  during 
these  intervals. 

The  First  Period  includes  all  plays  which  there  is 
good  reason  for  dating  before  1595.  In  this  the  great 
dramatist  was  serving  his  literary  apprenticeship, 
learning  the  difficult  art  of  play  writing,  and  learning 
it  by  experiments  and  mistakes.  In  the  course  of  his 
experiments,  he  tried  many  different  types,  tragedies, 
histories,  comedies,  and  rewrote  old  plays  either  alone 
or  with  a  more  experienced  playwright  to  help  him. 
Nearly  all  of  this  work  is  full  of  promise ;  most  of  it 
is  also  full  of  faults.  Here  belong  the  early  comedies 
mentioned  above  —  Lovers  Labour's  Lost  and  The  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona.  Here  is  the  crude  but  powerful 
Richard  III,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet ,  the  early  faults  of 
which  are  redeemed  by  such  a  wealth  of  youthful 
poetic  fire. 

The  Second  Period  extends  roughly  from  1595  to 
1600.  The  poet  has  learned  his  profession  now,  is  no 
longer  a  beginner  but  a  master,  though  hardly  yet  at 
the  summit  of  his  powers.  Here  are  included  three 
chronicle  plays,  the  two  parts  of  King  Henry  IV  and 
King  Henry  F,  and  six  comedies.  One  of  the  earliest  of 
these  comedies  was  The  Merchant  of  Venice,  already  men- 
tioned. Three  others,  a  little  later,  —  Much  Ado,  Twelfth 


102    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Night,  and  As  You  Like  It,  —  are  usually  regarded 
as  Shakespeare's  crowning  achievement  in  the  world 
of  mirth  and  humor.  In  this  group  of  plays,  whether 
history  or  comedy,  the  author  is  depicting  chiefly  the 
cheerful,  energetic  side  of  life. 

The  Third  Period  really  begins  about  1599,  for  this 
and  the  second  overlap ;  and  it  continues  to  about  1608. 
In  the  plays  of  this  group  the  poet  becomes  interested 
in  a  wholly  new  set  of  themes.  The  aspects  of  life 
which  he  interprets  are  no  longer  bright  and  cheer- 
ful, but  stern  and  sad.  Here  come  the  great  tragedies, 
several  of  which  we  have  mentioned  above  —  Julius 
Ccesar,  Hamlet,  Othello,  King  Lear,  Maxibeth,  Antony 
and  Cleopatra.  Shakespeare  is  now  at  the  height  of 
his  power,  for  his  greatest  masterpieces  are  included  in 
the  above  list.  Mixed  in  with  this  wealth  of  splendid 
tragedy  (though  inferior  to  it  in  merit),  there  are  also 
three  comedies.  But  even  the  comedies  share  in  the 
somber  gloom  which  absorbed  the  poet's  attention  dur- 
ing this  period.  The  comedies  before  1600  had  been 
full  of  sunshine,  brimming  with  kindly,  good-natured 
mirth,  overflowing  with  the  genial  laughter  which 
makes  us  love  the  very  men  at  whom  we  are  laughing. 
But  the  three  comedies  of  this  Third  Period  are  bitter 
and  sarcastic  in  their  wit,  making  us  despise  the  people 
who  furnish  us  fun,  and  leaving  an  unpleasant  taste 
in  the  mouth  after  the  laugh  is  over.  Some  have 
assumed  that  the  dark  tinge  of  this  period  was  due  to 
an  unknown  sorrow  in  the  poet's  own  life,  but  there  seems 
to  be  no  need  of  any  such  assumption.  We  may  be- 
come interested  in  reading  cheerful  books  one  year 
and  sad  ones  the  next  without  being  more  cheerful  or 


DEVELOPMENT  AS  A  DRAMATIST         103 

more  sad  in  one  year  than  in  the  other ;  and  what  is 
true  of  the  reader  might  reasonably  be  true  of  the 
writer.  But  whatever  the  cause  which  influenced 
Shakespeare,  the  tragedies  of  this  group  are  the  saddest 
as  well  as  the  greatest  of  all  his  plays. 

The  Fourth  and  last  Period  contains  plays  written 
after  1608-1609.  There  are  only  five  of  these,  and  since 
Pericles  and  Henry  VIII&Ye  in  large  part  by  other  hands^ 
our  interest  focuses  chiefly  on  the  remaining  three  — 
The  Tempest,  Cymheline,  and  The  Winter's  Tale.  All 
the  plays  of  this  period  end  happily  and  are  wholly 
free  from  the  bitterness  of  the  Third  Period  comedy. 
Nevertheless,  they  have  little  of  the  rollicking,  up- 
roarious fun  of  the  earlier  comedies.  Their  charm  lies 
rather  in  a  subdued  cheerfulness,  a  quiet,  pure,  sympa- 
thetic serenity  of  tone,  less  strenuous,  but  even  more 
poetic,  than  what  had  gone  before.  In  some  ways  they 
are  hardly  equal  to  the  great  tragedies  just  mentioned, 
for  the  poet  is  growing  older  now,  and  the  fiery  vigor  of 
Macbeth  is  fading  out  of  his  verse.  But  in  loftiness  of 
thought  and  tenderness  of  feeling  these  later  romances 
are  equal  to  anything  that  the  author  ever  gave  us. 

Whether  other  causes  influenced  him  or  not,  Shake- 
speare was  doubtless  in  these  four  periods  conforming 
to  some  extent  to  the  literary  tendencies  of  the  hour. 
The  writings  of  his  contemporaries  also  show  a  larger 
percentage  of  comedies  between  1595-1600  than  between 
1590-1595.  Many  other  dramatists,  too,  were  writing 
histories  while  he  was,  and  dropped  them  at  about  the 
same  time.  Likewise  during  his  Fourth  Period  three- 
quarters  of  all  the  plays  written  by  other  men  were 
comedies,  the  most  successful  of  them  in  a  similar 


104    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

romantic  tone.  On  the  whole,  too,  other  writers  pro- 
duced a  rather  larger  percentage  of  tragedies  during 
1601-1607  than  at  any  other  time  while  Shakespeare 
was  writing,  although  the  change  was  not  nearly  as 
marked  in  them  as  in  him.  But  whether  the  influence 
of  contemporaries  was  great  or  small,  these  periods 
exist;  and  the  individual  plays  can  be  better  under- 
stood if  read  in  the  light  of  the  groups  to  which  they 
belong. 

Perhaps  the  best  book  on  Shakespeare's  development  as  a 
dramatist  is :  The  Development  of  Shakespeare  as  a  Dramatist 
by  G.  P.  Baker  (The  Macmillan  Co.,  New  York,  1907). 


yj^  \^ 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   CHIEF    SOURCES    OP    SHAKESPEARE's    PLAYS 

Shakespeare  and  Plagiarism.  —  Among  the  curious 
alterations  in  public  sentiment  that  have  come  in  the 
last  century  or  two,  none  is  more  striking  than  the 
change  of  attitude  in  regard  to  what  is  called  "  plagiar- 
ism." Plagiarism  may  be  defined  as  the  appropriation 
for  one's  own  use  of  the  literary  ideas  of  another. 
The  laws  of  patent  and  of  copyright  have  led  us  into 
thinking  that  the  ideas  of  a  play  must  not  be  borrowed 
in  any  degree,  but  must  originate  in  every  detail  with 
the  writer.  This  is  as  if  we  should  say  to  an  inventor, 
"  Yes,  you  may  have  invented  a  safety  trigger  for  re- 
volvers, but  you  must  not  apply  it  to  revolvers  until 
you  have  invented  a  completely  new  type  of  revolver 
from  the  original  matchlock." 

But  the  playwright  of  to-day  cannot  help  plagiarizing 
his  technique,  many  of  his  situations,  and  even  his  plots 
from  earlier  plays;  consequently,  he  tries  to  conceal 
his  borrowings,  to  placate  public  opinion  by  changing 
the  names  and  the  environment  of  his  characters. 

The  Elizabethan  audiences  were  less  exacting.  If  a 
play  about  King  Lear  were  written  and  acted  with  some 
success,  they  thought  it  perfectly  honest  for  another 
dramatist  to  use  this  material  in  building  up  a  new  and 
better  play  on  the  story  of  King  Lear.  They  cared 
105 


106    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

even  less  when  the  dramatist  went  to  other  dramas  for 
hints  on  minor  details.  The  modern  audience,  if  not 
the  modern  world  at  large,  holds  the  same  view.  So 
long  as  the  mind  of  the  borrower  transforms  and  makes 
his  own  whatever  he  borrows,  so  long  will  his  work  be 
applauded  by  his  audience,  whatever  be  the  existing 
state  of  the  copyright  laws  or  of  public  fastidious- 
ness. 

Hence  we  do  not  to-day  hunt  up  the  sources  of 
Shakespeare's  plots  and  characters  in  order  to  prove 
plagiarism,  but  in  order  to  understand  just  how  great 
was  the  power  of  his  genius  in  transmuting  common 
elements  into  his  fine  gold. 

It  is  customary  to  say:  "Shakespeare  did  not  in- 
vent his  plots.  He  was  not  interested  in  plots."  So 
far  is  this  from  the  truth  that  the  amount  of  pains  and 
skill  spent  by  him  in  working  over  any  one  of  his  best 
comedies  or  tragedies  would  more  than  suffice  for  the 
construction  of  a  very  good  modern  plot.  It  is  more 
true  to  say  of  most  of  his  work,  "  Shakespeare  did  not 
waste  his  time  in  inventing  stories.^  He  took  stories 
where  he  found  them,  realized  their  dramatic  possibili- 
ties, and  spent  infinite  pains  in  weaving  them  together 
into  a  harmonious  whole.'' 

There  is  one  other  point  to  remember.  The  sources 
of  Shakespeare's  plays  were  no  better  literary  ma- 
terial than  the  sources  of  most  Elizabethan  plays. 
Shakespeare's  practice   in  adapting  older  plays  was 

1  There  are  two  plays  at  least  which  have  plots  probably  original 
with  Shakespeare  —  Love's  Labour's  Lost  and  The  Tempest.  Both 
of  these  draw  largely,  however,  from  contemporary  history  and 
adventure,  and  the  central  idea  is  directly  borrowed  from  actual 
events. 


SOURCES  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      107 

the  commoti  practice  of  the  time.  We  can  measure, 
therefore,  the  greatness  of  Shakespeare^s  achievement 
by  a  comparison  with  what  others  have  made  out  of 
similar  material. 

Just  as  Shakespeare's  plays  fall  into  the  groups  of 
history,  tragedy,  and  comedy,  so  his  chief  sources 
are  three  in  number:  biography,  as  found  in  the 
Chronicle  of  Holinshed  and  Plutarch's  Lives  ;  romance, 
as  found  in  the  novels  of  the  period,  which  were  most 
of  them  translations  from  Italian  novelle  ;  and  dramatic 
material  from  other  plays. 

Holinshed.  —  Raphael  Holinshed  (died  1580?)  pub- 
lished in  1578  a  history  of  England,  Scotland,  and 
Ireland,  usually  known  as  Holinshed's  Chronicle, 
The  two  immense  folio  volumes  contain  an  account 
of  Britain  "from  its  first  inhabiting"  up  to  his  own 
day,  largely  made  up  by  combining  the  works  of  pre- 
vious historians.  The  Chronicle  bears  evidence,  how- 
ever, of  enormous  and  painstaking  research  which 
makes  it  valuable  even  now.  Holinshed's  style  was 
clear,  but  not  possessed  of  any  distinctly  literary 
quality.  Much  of  what  Shakespeare  used  was  indeed 
but  a  paraphrase  of  an  earlier  chronicler,  Edward 
Hall.  Holinshed  was  uncritical,  too,  since  he  made 
no  attempt  to  separate  the  legendary  from  the  truly 
historical  material.  So  far  as  drama  is  concerned, 
however,  this  was  rather  a  help  than  a  hindrance, 
since  legend  often  crystallizes  most  truly  the  spirit  of 
a  career  in  an  act  or  a  saying  which  never  had  basis 
in  fact.  The  work  is  notable  chiefly  for  its  patriotic 
tone,  of  which  there  is  certainly  more  than  an  echo  in 
Shakespeare's   historical   plays.      But  the  effects  of 


108    AN  INTRODUCTION   TO  SHAKESPEARE 

steadfast  continuity  of  national  purpose,  of  a  belief  in 
the  gi'eatness  of  England,  and  of  an  insistent  appeal 
to  patriotism,  which  are  such  important  elements  in 
Shakespeare's  histories,  are  totally  wanting  in  Hol- 
inshed. 

Not  only  are  all  of  the  histories  of  Shakespeare 
based  either  directly  or  through  the  medium  of  other 
plays  upon  Holinshed,  but  his  two  great  tragedies, 
Macbeth  and  King  Lear  (the  latter  through  an  earlier 
play),  and  his  comedy  Gymheline  are  also  chiefly  in- 
debted to  it.  The  work  was,  moreover,  the  source  of 
many  plays  by  other  dramatists. 

Plutarch.  —  Plutarch  of  Chaeronea,  a  Greek  author 
of  the  first  century  a.d.,  wrote  forty-six  "parallel" 
Lives,  of  famous  Greeks  and  Romans.  Each  famous 
Greek  was  contrasted  with  a  famous  Roman  whose 
career  was  somewhat  similar  to  his  own.  The  Lives 
have  been  ever  since  among  the  most  popular  of  the 
classics,  for  they  are  more  than  mere  biographies.  They 
are  the  interpretation  of  two  worlds,  with  all  their 
tragic  history,  by  one  who  felt  the  fatal  force  of  a 
resistless  destiny. 

A  scholarly  French  translation  of  Plutarch's  Lives 
was  published  in  1559  by  Jacques  Amyot,  Bishop  of 
Bellozane.  Twenty  years  after  (1579)  Thomas  North, 
later  Sir  Thomas,  published  his  magnificent  English 
version.'^  The  vigor  and  spirit  which  he  flung  into 
his  work  can  only  be  compared  to  that  of  William 
Tyndale  in  his  translation  of  the  New  Testament. 
Here  was  very  different  material  for  drama  from  the 

1  It  is  not  unlikely  that  it  was  the  second  edition  published  in 
1595  by  Richard  Field  (Shakespeare's  printer)  that  the  poet  read. 


SOURCES  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      109 

dry  bones  of  history  offered  by  Holinshed.  Shake- 
speare paid  North  the  sincerest  compliment  by  bor- 
rowing, particularly  in  Antony  and  Cleopatra^  and 
Coriolanus,  not  only  the  general  story,  but  whole 
speeches  with  only  those  changes  necessary  for  mak- 
ing blank  verse  out  of  prose.  The  last  speeches  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra  are  indeed  nearly  as  impressive 
in  North's  narrative  form  as  in  Shakespeare's  play. 

In  addition  to  the  tragedies  already  named,  Julius 
Coesar  and  almost  certainly  the  suggestion  of  Timon 
of  Athens^  though  not  the  play  as  a  whole,  were  taken 
from  Plutarch's  Lives.  Other  Elizabethans  were  not 
slow  to  avail  themselves  of  this  unequaled  treasure- 
house  of  story. 

Italian  and  Other  Fiction. — Excex^t  for  Geoffrey 
Chaucer  (1338-1400),  whose  Troilus  and  Criseyde 
Shakespeare  dramatized,  and  John  Gower  (died  1408), 
whose  Confessio  Amantis  is  one  of  the  books  out  of 
which  the  plot  of  Pericles  may  have  come,  there  was 
little  good  English  fiction  read  in  the  Elizabethan 
period.  Educated  people  read,  instead,  Italian  novelle, 
or  short  tales,  which  were  usually  gathered  into  some 
collection  of  a  hundred  or  so.  Many  of  these  were 
translated  into  English  before  Shakespeare's  time ; 
and  a  number  of  similar  collections  had  been  made  by 
English  authors,  who  had  translated  good  stories 
whenever  they  found  them. 

One  of  these  was  Gli  Heccatommithi,  1565  (The 
Hundred  Tales),  by  Giovanni  Giraldi,  surnamed 
Cinthio,  which  was  later  translated  into  French  and 
was  the  source  of  Measure  for  Measure  and  Othello. 
Another  collection  was  that  of  Matteo  Bandello,  whose 


110    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Tales,  1554-1573,  translated  into  French  by  Belleforest, 
furnished  the  sources  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing, 
and  perhaps  Twelfth  Night.  The  greatest  of  these 
collections  was  the  Decameron,  c.  1353,  by  Giovanni 
Boccaccio,  one  of  whose  stories,  translated  by  William 
Painter  in  his  Palace  of  Pleasure,  1564,  furnished  the 
source  of  AlVs  Well  That  Ends  Well.  Another  story 
of  the  Decameron  was  probably  the  source  of  the 
romantic  part  of  the  plot  of  Cymbeline.  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Wiiidsor  had  a  plot  like  the  story  in  Stra- 
parola's  Tredici  Piacevole  Notte  (1550),  Thirteen  Pleas- 
ant Evenings;  and  Tlie  Merchant  of  Venice  borrows  its 
chief  plot  from  Giovanni  Fiorentino's  II  Pecorone. 

Two  of  Shakespeare's  plays  are  based  on  English 
novels  written  somewhat  after  the  Italian  manner  — 
As  Tou  Like  It  on  Thomas  Lodge's  novel-poem,  Rosa- 
lynde,  and  The  Winter's  Tale  from  Robert  Greene's 
Pandosto.  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  is  from  a 
Spanish  story  in  the  Italian  style,  the  Diana  of  Jorge 
de  Montemayor.  The  Comedy  of  Errors  from  Plautus 
is  his  only  play  based  on  classical  sources. 

The  Italian  novelle  emphasized  situation,  but  had 
little  natural  dialogue  and  still  less  characterization. 
The  Elizabethan  dramatists  used  them  only  for  their 
plots.  Never  did  works  of  higher  genius  spring  from 
less  inspired  sources. 

The  Plays  used  by  Shakespeare. — Although  Shake- 
speare made  up  one  of  his  plots,  the  Comedy  of  Errors, 
from  two  plays  of  Plautus  (254-184  b.c),  the  Me- 
naechmi  and  Amphitmo,  the  rest  of  the  plays  he 
used  for  material  were  contemporary  work.  He 
borrowed  from  them  plots  and  situations,  and  occa- 


SOURCES  OF  SHAKESPEARE'S  PLAYS      111 

sionally  even  lines.  With  the  exception,  however,  of 
one  of  the  early  histories,  the  plays  he  made  use  of 
are  in  themselves  of  no  value  as  literature.  Their 
sole  claim  to  notice  is  that  they  served  the  need  of 
the  great  playwright.  None  but  the  student  will  ever 
read  them.  In  practically  every  case  Shakespeare  so 
developed  the  story  that  the  fiction  became  essentially 
his  own;  while  the  poetic  quality  of  the  verse,  the 
development  of  character,  and  the  heightening  of 
dramatic  effect,  which  he  built  upon  it,  left  no  more  of 
the  old  play  in  sight  than  the  statue  shows  of  the  bare 
metal  rods  upon  which  the  sculptor  molds  his  clay. 

Seven  histories  go  back  to  the  earlier  plays  on  the 
kings  of  England.  The  Second  and  Third  Parts  of 
Henry  VI  are  taken  from  two  earlier  plays  often 
called  the  First  and  Second  Contentions  (between  the 
two  noble  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster).  The  First 
and  Second  parts  of  Henry  IV,  and  Henry  F,  are  all 
three  an  expansion  of  a  cruder  production,  the  Famous 
Victories  of  Henry  V  Richard  III  is  based  upon  the 
True  Traxjedie  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York;  King  John 
upon  the  Troublesome  Reigne  of  John,  King  of  England, 
the  latter  undoubtedly  the  best  of  the  sources  of 
Shakespeare's  Histories. 

King  Leir  and  His  Daughters  is  the  only  extant 
play  which  is  known  to  have  formed  the  basis  of  a 
Shakespearean  tragedy.  Shakespeare  made  additions 
in  this  case  from  other  sources,  borrowing  Glouces- 
ter's story  from  Sidney's  Arcadia.  The  earlier  play  of 
Hamlet,  which  it  is  believed  Shakespeare  used,  is  not 
now  in  existence. 

Among  the  comedies,  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is 


112    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO   SHAKESPEARE 

directly  based  upon  the  Taming  of  a  Shrew.  Measure 
for  Measure  is  less  direct,  borrowing  from  George 
Whetstone's  play  in  two  parts,  Promos  and  Cassandra 
(written  before  1578). 

The  existence  of  versions  in  German  and  Dutch  of 
plays  which  present  plots  similar  in  structure  to 
Shakespeare's,  but  less  highly  developed,  leads  scholars 
to  advance  the  theory  that  several  lost  plays  may 
have  been  sources  for  some  of  his  dramas.  Entries 
or  mentions  of  plays,  with  details  like  Shakespeare's, 
dated  earlier  than  his  own  plays  could  have  been  in 
existence,  are  also  used  to  further  the  same  view. 
The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona^  the  Merchant  of  Venice, 
Borneo  and  Juliet,  Hamlet,  and,  with  less  reason,  Timon 
of  Athens,  and  Twelfth  Night,  are  thought  to  have  been 
based  more  or  less  on  earlier  lost  plays. 

Finally,  a  number  of  plays  perhaps  suggested  de- 
tails in  Shakespeare's  plays.  Of  plays  so  influenced, 
Cymheline,  The  Winter^ s  Tale,  and  Henry  VIII  are  the 
chief.  But  the  debt  is  negligible  at  best,  so  far  as 
the  general  student  is  concerned. 

To  conclude,  what  Shakespeare  borrowed  was  the 
raw  material  of  drama.  What  he  gave  to  this  material 
was  life  and  art.  No  better  way  of  appreciating  the 
dramatist  at  his  full  worth  could  be  pursued  than  a 
patient  perusal  and  comparison  of  the  sources  of  his 
plays  with  Shakespeare's  own  work. 

The  best  books  on  this  subject  are :  H.  R.  D.  Anders, 
Shakespeare's  Books  (Berlin,  1904;  ;  Shakespeare's  Library^ 
ed.  J.  P.  Collier  and  W.  C.  Hazlitt  (London,  1875);  and  the  new 
Shakespeare  Library  now  being  published  by  Chatto  and 
Windus,  of  which  several  volumes  are  out. 


/vv/t' 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW   SHAKESPEARE   GOT   INTO    PRINT 

The  Elizabethan  audiences  who  filled  to  overflowing 
the  theaters  on  the  Bankside  possessed  a  far  purer 
text  of  Shakespeare  than  we  of  this  later  day  can 
boast.  In  order  to  understand  our  own  editions  of 
Shakespeare,  it  is  necessary  to  understand  something, 
at  least,  of  the  conditions  of  publishing  in  Shakespeare's 
day  and  of  the  relations  of  the  playhouses  with  the 
publishers. 

The  printing  of  Shakespeare's  poems  is  an  easy  tale, 
Venus  and  Adonis  in  1593,  and  The  Rape  of  Lucrece 
in  1594,  were  first  printed  in  quarto  by  Richard  Field, 
a  native  of  Stratford,  who  had  come  to  London.  In 
each  case  a  dedication  accompanying  the  text  was 
signed  by  Shakespeare,  so  that  we  may  guess  that  the 
poet  not  only  consented  to  the  printing,  but  took  care 
that  the  printing  should  be  accurate.  Twelve  editions 
of  one,  eight  of  the  other,  were  issued  before  1660. 
The  other  volume  of  poetry,  the  Sonnets,  was  printed 
in  1609  by  Thomas  Thorpe,  without  Shakespeare's  con- 
sent. Two  of  them,  numbers  138  and  144,  had  ap- 
peared in  the  collection  known  as  The  Passionate  Pil- 
grim^ a  pirated  volume  printed  by  W.  Jaggard  in 
1699.     No  reedition  of  the  Sonnets  appeared  till  1640. 

With  regard  to  the  plays  it  is  different.  It  is  first 
I  113 


114    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

to  be  said  that  in  no  volume  containing  a  play  or  plays 
of  Shakespeare  in  existence  to-day  is  there  any  evi- 
dence that  Shakespeare  saw  it  through  the  press.  All 
we  can  do  is  to  satisfy  ourselves  as  to  how  the  copy  of 
Shakespeare's  plays  may  have  got  into  the  hands  of 
the  publishers,  and  as  to  how  far  that  copy  represents 
what  Shakespeare  must  have  written. 

The  editions  of  Shakespearean  plays  may  be  divided 
into  two  groups,  —  the  separate  plays  which  were 
printed  in  quarto^  volumes  before  1623,  and  the  First 
Folio  of  Shakespeare,  which  was  printed  in  1623, 
a  collected  edition  of  all  his  plays  save  Pericles.  Our 
text  of  Shakespeare,  whatever  one  we  read,  is  made 
up,  either  from  the  First  Folio  text,  or  in  certain 
cases  from  the  quarto  volumes  of  certain  plays  which 
preceded  the  Folio;  together  with  the  attempts  to 
restore  to  faulty  places  what  Shakespeare  must  have 
written  —  a  task  which  has  engaged  a  long  line  of  dili- 
gent scholars  from  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  up 
to  our  own  day. 

The  Stationers'  Company. — In  the  early  period  of  Eng- 
lish printing,  which  began  about  1480  and  lasted  up  to 
1557,  there  was  very  little  supervision  over  the  publish- 
ing of  books,  and  as  a  result  the  competition  was  un- 
scrupulous.    There  was  a  guild  of  publishers,  called 

1 A  quarto  volume,  or  quarto,  is  a  book  which  is  the  size  of  a 
fourth  of  a  sheet  of  printing  paper.  The  sheets  are  folded  twice 
to  make  four  leaves  or  eight  pages,  and  the  usual  size  is  about  6x9 
in.  A  folio  is  a  volume  of  the  size  of  a  half  sheet  of  printing 
paper.  The  paper  is  folded  once  and  bound  in  the  middle,  the 
usual  size  being  about  9  X  12  in.  The  divisions  of  the  book  made  by 
thus  folding  sheets  of  paper  are  called  quires,  and  may  consist  of 
four  or  eight  leaves. 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRINT    115 

the  Stationers'  Company,  in  existence,  but  its  efforts 
to  control  its  members  were  only  of  a  general  charac- 
ter. In  1557,  however,  Philip  and  Mary  granted  a 
charter  to  the  Stationers'  Company  under  which  no 
one  not  a  member  of  the  Stationers'  Company  could 
legally  possess  a  printing  press.  Queen  Mary  was,  of 
course,  interested  in  controlling  the  press  directly 
through  the  Crown.  Throughout  the  Elizabethan 
period  the  printing  of  books  was  directly  under  the 
supervision  of  Her  Majesty's  Government,  and  not 
under  the  law  courts.  Every  book  had  to  be  licensed 
by  the  company.  The  Wardens  of  the  company 
acted  as  licensers  in  ordinary  cases,  and  in  doubtful 
cases  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the  Bishop  of 
London,  or  some  other  dignitary  appointed  for  the 
purpose.  When  the  license  was  granted,  the  permis- 
sion to  print  was  entered  upon  the  Register  of  the 
company,  and  it  is  from  these  records  that  much  im- 
portant knowledge  about  the  dates  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  is  gained. 

The  Stationers'  Company  was  interested  only  in 
protecting  its  members  from  prosecution  and  from 
competition.  The  author  was  not  considered  by  them 
in  the  legal  side  of  the  transaction.  How  the  printer 
got  his  manuscript  to  print  was  his  own  affair,  not 
theirs. 

Many  authors  were  at  that  time  paid  by  printers 
for  the  privilege  of  using  their  manuscript ;  but  it  was 
not  considered  proper  that  a  gentleman  should  be  paid 
for  literary  work.  Robert  Greene,  the  playwright  and 
novelist,  wrote  regularly  in  the  employ  of  printers. 
On  the  other  hand.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  a  contemporary 


116    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  Shakespeare's,  did  not  allow  any  of  his  writings  to 
be  printed  during  his  lifetime.  Francis  Bacon  pub- 
lished his  essays  only  in  order  to  forestall  an  un- 
authorized edition,  and  others  of  the  time  took  the 
same  course.  Bacon  says  in  his  preface  that  to  prevent 
their  being  printed  would  have  been  a  troublesome 
procedure.  It  was  possible  for  an  author  to  prevent 
the  publication  by  prosecution,  but  it  was  scarcely  a 
wise  thing  to  do,  in  view  of  the  legal  diificulties  in  the 
way.  Nevertheless,  fear  of  the  law  probably  acted  as 
some  sort  of  a  check  on  unscrupulous  publishers. 

The  author  of  a  play  was,  however,  really  less  in- 
terested than  the  manager  who  had  bought  it.  The 
manager  of  a  theater  seems,  from  what  evidence  we 
possess,  to  have  believed  that  the  printing  of  a  play 
injured  the  chances  of  success  upon  the  stage.  The 
play  was  sold  by  the  author  directly  to  the  manager, 
whose  property  it  became.  Copies  of  it  might  be  sold 
to  some  printer  by  some  of  the  players  in  the  company, 
by  the  manager  himself,  or,  in  rarer  cases,  by  some 
unscrupulous  copyist  taking  down  the  play  in  short-, 
hand  at  the  performance.  When  a  play  had  got  out 
of  date,  it  would  be  more  apt  to  be  sold  than  while  it 
was  still  on  the  stage.  In  some  cases,  however,  the 
printing  might  have  no  bad  effect  upon  the  attendance 
at  its  performances. 

During  the  years  before  1623,  seventeen  of  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  published  in  quarto.  Two  of  these, 
Borneo  and  Juliet  and  Hamlet,  were  printed  in  two 
very  different  versions,  so  that  we  have  nineteen 
texts  of  Shakespeare's  plays  altogether  published 
before  the   First   Folio.     A  complete  table  of  these 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRINT    117 

plays  witli  the  dates  in  which  the  quartos  appeared 
follows :  — 

1594.     Titus  Andronicus.     Later  quartos  in  1600  and  1611. 
1597.     Richard  II.    Later  quartos  in  1598,  1608,  and  1616. 
1597.     Richard  III.     Later  quartos  in  1598,  1602,  1605,  1612, 
and  1622. 

1597.  Romeo  and  Juliet.     Later  quartos  in  1599  (corrected  edi- 

tion) and  1609. 

1598.  I  Henry  IV.     Later  quartos  in  1599,  1604,  1608,  1613, 

and  1622. 
1598.    Love's  Labour's  Lost. 
1600.     Merchant  of  Venice.    Later  quarto  in  1619.     (Copying 

on  the  title-page  the  original  date  of  1600,  however.) 
1600.     Henry  V.     Later  quartos  in  1602  and  1619.     (Dated  on 

the  title-page,  1608.) 
1600.     Henry  IV,  Part  II. 
1600.     Midsummer    Night's    Dream.    Later    quarto    in    1619. 

(Dated,  howeter,  1600.) 

1602.  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.    Later  quarto  in  1619. 

1603.  Hamlet. 

1604.  Second  edition  of  Hamlet.    Later  quartos  in  1605  and 

1611. 
1608.    King  Lear.    Later  quarto  in  1619.     (Title-page  date, 
1608.) 

1608.  Pericles.    Later  quartos  in  1609,  1611,  and  1619. 

1609.  Troilus  and  Cressida.    A  second  quarto  in  1609. 
1622.     Othello. 

These  are  all  the  known  quartos  of  Shakespeare's 
plays  printed  before  the  Folio.  They  represent  two 
distinct  classes.  The  first  class  (comprising  fourteen 
texts)  of  the  quartos  contains  good  texts  of  the  plays 
and  is  of  great  assistance  to  editors.  The  second 
(comprising  five  texts),  the  first  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
Henry  V,  Merry  Wives,  the  first  Hamlet,  and  PerideSf 


118    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

is  composed  of  thoroughly  bad  copies.  Two  of  this 
class  were  not  entered  on  the  Stationers'  Register  at 
all,  but  were  pure  piracies.  Two  others  were  entered 
by  one  firm,  but  were  printed  by  another.  The  fifth 
was  entered  and  transferred  on  the  same  day.  Of  the 
fourteen  good  texts,  twelve  were  regularly  entered  on 
the  Stationers'  Register,  and  the  other  two  were  evi- 
dently intended  to  take  the  place  of  a  bad  text.  It  is 
evident,  therefore,  that  registry  upon  the  books  of  the 
Stationers'  Company  was  a  safeguard  to  an  author  in 
getting  before  the  public  a  good  text  of  his  writings. 
It  also  indicates  that  the  good  copies  were  obtained 
by  printers  in  a  legal  manner,  and  so  probably  pur- 
chased directly  from  the  theaters,  whether  from  the 
copy  which  the  prompter  had,  or  from  some  transcript 
of  the  play.  The  notion  that  all  plays  were  printed 
in  Shakespeare's  time  by  a  process  of  piracy  is  thus 
not  borne  out  by  these  facts. 

The  five  bad  quartos  deserve  a  moment's  attention. 
The  first  of  these,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  printed  and  pub- 
lished by  John  Danter  in  1597,  omits  over  seven 
hundred  lines  of  the  play,  and  the  stage  directions  are 
descriptions  rather  than  definite  instructions.  The 
book  is  printed  in  two  kinds  of  type,  a  fact  due  prob- 
ably to  its  being  printed  from  two  presses  at  once. 
Danter  got  into  trouble  later  on  with  other  books  from 
his  dishonest  ways.  The  second  poor  quarto,  Henry  V, 
printed  in  1600,  was  less  than  half  as  long  as  the  Folio 
text,  and  was  probably  carelessly  copied  by  an  igno- 
rant person  at  a  performance  of  the  play.  The  third, 
the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  was  pirated  through  the 
publisher  of  Henry  V,  John  Busby,  who  assigned  his 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT   INTO  PRINT    119 

part  to  another  printer  on  the  same  day.  As  in  the 
case  of  Romeo  and  Juliet^  the  stage  directions  are  mere 
descriptions.  No  play  of  Shakespeare's  was  more 
cruelly  bungled  by  an  unscrupulous  copyist.  The  first 
edition  of  Hamlet  in  1603  was  the  work  of  Valentine 
Sims.  While  the  copying  is  full  of  blunders,  this 
quarto  is  considered  important,  as  indicating  that  the 
play  was  acted  at  first  in  a  much  shorter  and  less  ar- 
tistic version  than  the  one  which  we  now  read.  For 
eight  months  of  1603-1604  the  theaters  of  London  were 
closed  on  account  of  the  plague,  and  Shakespeare's 
revision  of  Hamlet  may  have  been  made  during  this 
time.  At  any  rate,  the  later  version  appeared  about 
the  end  of  1604.  The  last  of  these  pirated  quartos, 
Pericles,  was  probably  taken  down  in  shorthand  at  the 
theater.  Here,  unfortunately,  as  this  play  was  not 
included  in  the  First  Folio,  and  as  all  later  quartos 
were  based  on  the  First  Quarto,  we  have  to-day  what 
is  really  a  corrupt  and  difficult  text.  Luckily,  Shake- 
speare's share  in  this  play  is  small. 

The  title-pages  of  the  quartos  of  Shakespeare  bear 
convincing  testimony,  not  only  to  the  genuineness  of  his 
plays,  but  also  to  his  rise  in  reputation.  Only  six  of 
his  plays  were  printed  in  quartos  not  bearing  his  name. 
Of  these,  two  — Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Henry  V — 
began  with  pirated  editions  not  bearing  the  author's 
name.  Three — Richard  II,  Richard  III,  I  Henry  IV — 
were  all  followed  by  quartos  with  the  poet's  name  upon 
them.  The  sixth  play,  Titus  Andronicus,  was  one  of 
his  earliest  works,  and  its  authorship  is  even  now  not 
absolutely  certain. 

Since  the  name  of  a  popular  dramatist  on  the  title- 


120    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

page  was  a  distinct  source  of  revenue  to  the  publisher 
after  1598,  it  was  to  be  expected  that  anonymous  plays 
should  be  ascribed  in  some  cases  to  William  Shake- 
speare by  an  unscrupulous  or  a  misinformed  printer. 
Here  arose  the  Shakespeare  *  apocrypha/  which  is 
discussed  in  a  following  chapter. 

A  new  problem  in  the  history  of  Shakespearean 
quartos  has  been  presented  since  1903  by  a  study  of 
the  quartos  of  1619.  Briefly  summarized,  the  theory 
which  is  best  defended  at  the  present  time  is,  that  in 
that  year  Thomas  Pavier  and  William  Jaggard,  two 
printers  of  London,  decided  at  first  to  get  up  a  col- 
lected quarto  edition  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  but  on 
giving  up  this  idea,  they  issued  nine  plays  in  a  uni- 
form size  and  on  paper  bearing  identical  watermarks, 
which  were  either  at  that  time  or  later  bound  up  to- 
gether as  a  collected  set  of  Shakespeare's  plays  in  a 
single  volume.^  These  plays  are  the  Whole  Contention 
Between  the  Two  Famous  Houses  of  Lancaster  and  Tork, 
"printed  for  T.  P.";  A  Yorkshire  Tragedie,  "printed 
forT.  P.,  1619";"Pendes,  " printed  for  T.  P.  1619''; 
Merry  Wives,  "  printed  for  Arthur  Johnson,  1619  "  ; 
Sir  John  Oldcastle, «  printed  for  T.  P.,  1600  " ;  Henry  V, 
"printed  for  T.  P.,  1608";  Merchant  of  Venice, 
"printed  by  J.  Roberts,  1600";  King  Lear,  "printed 
for  Nathaniel  Butter,  1608 " ;  Midsummer  NigMs 
Dream,  "  printed  for  Thomas  Fisher,  1600." 

Of  these  plays,  the  Whole  Contention,  the  Yorkshire 

1  This  view  of  the  Pavier- Jaggard  collection  is  held  by  A.  W. 
Pollard  of  the  British  Museum  and  W.  W.  Greg  of  Trinity  College 
Library,  Cambridge.  The  writers  of  this  volume  incline  to  accord 
it  complete  recognition. 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRINT    121 

TragediBf  and  Sir  John  Oldcastle  are  spurious,  but 
had  been  attributed  to  Shakespeare  in  earlier  quartos. 
The  five  plays  dated  1600  or  1608  in  each  case  dupli- 
cated a  quarto  actually  printed  in  the  year  claimed  by 
the  Pavier  reprint ;  so  that  this  earlier  dating  was  an 
attempt  to  deceive  the  public  into  believing  they  were 
purchasing  the  original  editions. 

Under  the  date  of  the  8th  of  November,  1623, 
Edward  Blount  and  Isaac  Jaggard  entered  for  their 
copy  in  the  Stationers'  Register  "  Mr.  William  Shak- 
speers  Comedyes,  Histories  and  Tragedy es,  soe  manie 
of  the  said  copyes  as  are  not  formerly  entred  to  other 
men  viz*,  Comedyes,  The  Tempest.  The  two  gentle- 
men of  Verona.  Measure  for  Measure.  The  Comedy 
of  Errors.  As  you  like  it.  All's  well  that  ends  well. 
Twelfth  Night.  The  winter's  tale.  Histories  The 
third  parte  of  Henry  the  sixth.  Henry  the  eight. 
Tragedies.  Coriolanus.  Timon  of  Athens.  Julius 
Caesar.  Mackbeth.  Anthonie  and  Cleopatra.  Cym- 
beline."  This  entry  preluded  the  publication  of  the 
First  Folio.  Associated  with  Blount  and  Jaggard 
were  Jaggard's  son  Isaac,  who  had  the  contract  for 
the  printing  of  the  book,  I.  Smethwick,  and  W.  A. 
Aspley.  Smethwick  owned  at  this  time  the  rights  of 
Lovers  Labour's  Lost,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  Hamlet, 
and  also  the  Taming  of  a  Shrew,  which  latter  right 
apparently  carried  with  it  the  right  to  print  Shake- 
speare's adaptation  of  it,  the  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 
Aspley  owned  the  rights  to  Mu^h  Ado  About  Nothing, 
and  to  II  Henry  IV .  These  four  printers,  making 
arrangements  with  other  printers,  such  as  Law,  who 
apparently  had  the  rights  of  /  Henry  IV,  Richard  II, 


122    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

and  Bichard  III,  and  others,  were  thus  able  to  bring 
out  an  apparently  complete  edition  of  Shakespeare's 
plays.  One  play,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  was  evidently 
secured  only  at  the  last  moment  and  printed  very  irregu- 
larly.^ Blount  and  Jaggard  apparently  got  the  manu- 
scripts of  the  sixteen  plays  on  the  Register  from 
members  of  Shakespeare's  company,  two  of  whom,  John 
Hemings  and  Henry  Condell,  affixed  their  names  to  the 
Address  to  the  Reader  which  was  prefixed  to  the  vol- 
ume. It  will  be  remembered  that  these  men  received  by 
Shakespeare's  bequest  a  gold  ring  as  a  token  of  friend- 
ship. Their  intimacy  with  the  dramatist  must  have 
been  both  strong  and  lasting.  Their  actual  share  in  the 
editing  of  the  volume  cannot  be  ascertained.  It  may 
be  that  all  the  claims  are  true  which  are  made  above 
their  names  in  the  Address  to  the  Reader  as  to  their 
care  and  pains  in  collecting  and  publishing  his  works 
"  so  to  have  publish'd  them  as  where  before  you  were 
abused  with  diverse  stolne  and  surreptitious  copies, 
maimed  and  deformed,  the  steal thes  of  injurious  copy- 
ists, we  expos'd  them  ;  even  those  are  now  offer'd  to 
your  view,  crude  and  bereft  of  their  limbes,  and  of 
the  rest  absolutely  in  their  parts  as  he  conceived  them 
who  as  he  was  a  happie  imitator  of  nature  was  a  most 
gentle  expresser  of  it.  His  mind  and  hand  went 
together  and  what  he  thought  he  told  with  that 
easinesse  that  wee  have  scarse  received  from  him  a 

1  It  was  evidently  designed  to  fit  in  between  Romeo  and  Juliet 
and  Julius  Cassar ;  but  the  owner  of  the  publishing  rights  holding 
out  till  that  part  of  the  book  was  ready,  the  editors  "  ran  in  " 
Timon  of  Athens  to  fill  up.  When  Troilus  and  Cressida  was  finally 
arranged  for,  it  had  to  be  inserted  between  the  Histories  and 
Tragedies. 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRINT    123 

blot  in  his  papers."  On  the  other  hand,  scholarship 
has  discovered  more  in  the  life  of  Edward  Blount  to 
justify  his  claim  to  the  chief  work  of  editing  this 
volume.  Whoever  they  were,  the  editors'  claim  to  dil- 
igent care  in  their  work  was  sincere.  Throughout  the 
volume  there  are  proofs  that  they  employed  the  best 
text  which  they  could  get,  even  when  others  were  in 
print. 

It  is  owing  to  this  volume,  in  all  probability,  that  we 
possess  twenty  of  the  best  of  Shakespeare's  plays  and 
the  best  texts  of  a  number  of  the  others.  We  are  there- 
fore glad  to  hear  that  the  edition  was  a  success  and  was 
considered  worth  reprinting  within  nine  years.  It  is 
not  improbable  that  this  edition  ran  to  five  hundred 
copies.  Among  the  most  interesting  work  of  the 
editors  of  the  volume  was  the  prefixing  of  the  Droes- 
hout  engraved  portrait  on  the  title-page,  and  an  at- 
tempt to  improve  the  stage  directions,  as  well  as  the 
division  of  most  of  the  plays,  either  in  whole  or  in 
part,  into  acts  and  scenes. 

The  twenty  plays  which  appeared  in  print  for  the 
first  time  in  the  First  Folio  were  taken  in  all  probabil- 
ity directly  from  copies  in  the  possession  of  Shake- 
speare's company.  Their  texts  are,  upon  the  whole, 
excellent.  In  the  case  of  the  sixteen  other  plays 
the  editors  substituted  for  eight  of  the  plays  already 
in  print  in  quartos,  independent  texts  from  better 
manuscripts.  This  act  must  have  involved  consider- 
able expense  and  difficulty,  and  deserves  the  highest 
praise.  Five  of  the  printed  quartos  were  used  with 
additions  and  corrections.  In  the  case  of  Titus  An- 
dronicus  a  whole  scene  was  added.     In  three  cases  only 


124    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  the  sixteen  plays  already  printed  did  the  editors 
follow  a  quarto  text  without  correcting  it  from  a  later 
theatrical  copy.  This  conscientious  effort  to  give 
posterity  the  best  text  of  Shakespeare  deserves  our 
gratitude. 

The  Second  Folio,  1632,  was  a  reprint  of  the  First ; 
the  Third  Folio,  1663,  a  reprint  of  the  Second ;  the 
Fourth  Folio,  1685,  a  reprint  of  the  Third.  This  prac- 
tice of  copying  the  latest  accessible  edition  has  been 
adopted  by  editors  down  to  a  very  late  period.  Be- 
tween 1629  and  1632  six  quartos  of  Shakespearean 
plays  were  printed,  —  a  fact  which  indicates  that  the 
First  Folio  edition  had  been  exhausted  and  that  there 
was  a  continued  market.  A  man  named  Thomas  Cotes 
acquired  through  one  Richard  Cotes  the  printing 
rights  of  the  Jaggards,  and  added  to  them  other  rights 
derived  from  Pavier.  The  old  publishers,  Smethwick 
and  Aspley,  were  still  living  and  were  associated  with 
him  in  publishing  the  Second  Folio.  Robert  Allott, 
June  26, 1629,  had  bought  up  Blount's  title  to  the  plays 
first  registered  in  1623,  and  was  thus  also  concerned 
in  the  publication,  while  Richard  Hawkins  and  Richard 
Meighen,  who  owned  the  rights  of  Othello  and  Merry 
Wives,  were  allowed  to  take  shares.  The  editors  of 
the  Second  Folio  made  only  such  alterations  in  the 
text  of  the  First  Folio  as  they  thought  necessary  to 
make  it  more  "  correct."  The  vast  majority  of  the 
changes  are  unimportant  grammatical  corrections, 
some  of  them  obviously  right,  others  as  obviously 
wrong. 

Five  more  Shakespearean  quartos  followed  between 
1634  and  1639.     Between  1652  and   1655  two  other 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRrNTT    125 

quartos  were  published.  The  Third  Folio,  1664,  was 
published  by  Philip  Chetwind,  who  had  married  the 
widow  of  Robert  Allott  and  thus  got  most  of  the  rights 
in  the  Second  Folio.  Chetwind' s  Folio  is  famous,  not 
only  for  the  addition  of  Pericles,  which  alone  it  was 
his  first  intention  to  include,  but  also  for  the  addition 
of  six  spurious  plays  —  Sir  John  OldcastlSf  The  York- 
shire Tragedie,  A  London  Prodigall,  The  Tragedie  of 
Locrine,  Thomas,  Lord  Cromwell,  and  The  Puritaine, 
or  The  Widdow  of  Watling  Streete.  Chetwind's  rea- 
son for  thus  adding  these  plays  was  that  they  had 
passed  under  Shakespeare's  name  or  initials  in  their 
earliest  prints.  The  Fourth  Folio,  1685,  is  a  mere  re- 
print of  the  Third. 

With  the  Fourth  Folio  ends  the  early  history  of  how 
Shakespeare  got  into  print.  From  that  time  to  this  a 
long  line  of  famous  and  obscure  men,  at  first  mostly 
men  of  letters,  but  afterwards,  and  especially  in  our 
own  times,  trained  specialists  in  their  profession,  have 
devoted  much  of  their  lives  to  the  editing  of  Shake- 
speare. Their  ideal  has  been,  usually,  to  give  readers 
the  text  of  his  poems  and  plays  in  their  presumed 
primitive  integrity.  Constant  study  of  his  works,  and 
of  other  Elizabethan  writers,  has  given  them  a  certain 
knowledge  of  the  words  and  grammatical  usages  of 
that  day  which  go  far  to  make  Elizabethan  English  a 
foreign  tongue  to  us.  On  the  other  hand,  more  knowl- 
edge about  the  conditions  of  printing  in  Shakespeare's 
time  has  helped  the  editors  very  greatly  in  their  at- 
tempts to  set  right  a  passage  which  was  misprinted 
in  the  earliest  printed  text,  or  a  line  of  which  two 
early  texts  give  different  versions. 


126    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

An  example  of  the  difficulties  that  still  confront 
editors  may  be  given  from  II  Henry  IV,  IV,  i,  94-96: — 

"  Archbishop.  My  brother  general,  the  commonwealth, 
To  brother  born,  an  household  cruelty. 
I  make  my  quarrel  in  particular." 

Nobody  knows  what  Shakespeare  meant  to  say  in  this 
passage,  and  no  satisfactory  guess  has  ever  been  made 
as  to  what  has  happened  to  these  lines. 

A  knowledge  of  Elizabethan  English  has  cleared  up 
the  following  passage  perfectly.  According  to  the 
First  Folio,  the  only  early  print,  Antony  calls  Lepidus, 
in  Julius  Coesar,  IV,  i,  36-37  :  — 

"  A  barren-spirited  fellow  ;  one  that  feeds 
On  objects,  arts,  and  imitations.  ..." 

This  has  been  corrected  to  read  in  the  second  line 

*'0n  abjects,  orts,  and  imitations." 

Abjects  here  means  outcasts,  and  orts,  scraps,  or  leav- 
ings ;  but  no  one  unfamiliar  with  the  language  of  that 
time  could  have  solved  the  puzzle. 

A  different  sort  of  problem  is  offered  by  such  plays 
as  King  Lear,  of  which  the  quartos  furnish  three  hun- 
dred lines  not  in  the  Folio,  while  the  Folio  has  one 
hundred  lines  not  in  the  quartos,  and  is,  on  the  whole, 
much  more  carefully  copied.  The  modern  editor  gives 
all  the  lines  in  both  versions,  so  that  we  read  a  King 
Lear  which  is  probably  longer  than  Shakespeare's 
countrymen  read  or  ever  saw  acted.  The  modern  ed- 
itor selects,  however,  when  Folio  and  quartos  differ, 
the  reading  which  seems  best 


HOW  SHAKESPEARE  GOT  INTO  PRINT    127 

Folio.     "  Cordelia.  Was  this  a  face 

To  be  opposed  against  the  jarnngr  winds  ?  " 

Quartos.  "  Was  this  a  face 

To  be  opposed  against  the  warring  winds  ?  " 

In  such  a  difference  as  this,  the  personal  taste  of 
the  editor  is  apt  to  govern  his  text. 

We  cannot  here  go  farther  in  explaining  the  problems 
of  the  Shakespeare  text.  To  those  who  would  know 
more  of  them,  the  Variorum  edition  of  Dr.  H.  H. 
Furness  offers  a  full  history.  In  the  light  of  the 
knowledge  which  he  and  other  scholars  have  thrown 
upon  textual  criticism,  it  is  unlikely  that  there  will 
ever  be  poor  texts  of  Shakespeare  reprinted.  The 
work  of  the  Shakespeare  scholars  has  not  been  in 
vain.     . 

Later  Editions.  — Nicholas  Rowe  in  1709  produced  the  first 
edition  in  the  modern  sense.  He  modernized  the  spelling 
frankly,  repunctuated,  corrected  the  grammar,  made  out  lists 
of  the  dramatis  personsB,  arranged  the  verse  which  was  in  dis- 
order, and  made  a  number  of  good  emendations  in  difficult 
places.  He  added  also  exits  and  entrances,  which  in  earlier 
prints  were  only  inserted  occasionally.  Further,  he  completed 
the  division  of  the  plays  into  acts  and  scenes.  Perhaps  his 
most  important  work  was  writing  a  full  life  of  Shakespeare  in 
which  several  valuable  traditions  are  preserved.  The  poems 
were  not  included  in  the  edition,  but  were  published  in  1715 
from  the  edition  of  1640.  He  followed  the  Third  and  Fourth 
Folios  in  reprinting  the  spurious  plays.  The  edition  was  re- 
printed in  1714,  1725,  and  1728. 

In  1725  Alexander  Pope  published  his  famous  edition  of 
Shakespeare.  Pope  possessed  a  splendid  lot  of  the  old  quartos 
and  the  first  two  folios,  but  his  edition  was  wantonly  careless. 
He  did,  indeed,  use  some  sense  in  excluding  the  seven  spurious 
plays  as  well  as  Pericles  from  his  edition,  and  he  undoubtedly 


128    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

worked  hard  on  the  text.  He  subdivided  the  scenes  more 
minutely  than  Howe  after  the  fashion  of  the  French  stage  divi- 
sion, —  where  a  new  scene  begins  with  every  new  character  in- 
stead of  after  the  stage  has  been  cleared.  Pope's  explanations  of 
the  words  which  appeared  difficult  in  Shakespeare's  text  were 
often  laughably  far  from  the  truth.  The  word  '  foison,'  mean- 
ing '  plenty,'  Pope  defined  as  the  '  natural  juice  of  grass.'  The 
word  'neif,'  meaning  'fist,'  Pope  thought  meant  'woman.' 
Pistol  is  thus  made  to  say,  "  Thy  woman  will  I  take."  Phrases 
that  appeared  to  be  vulgar  or  unpoetical  he  simply  dropped  out, 
or  altered  without  notice.  He  rearranged  the  lines  in  order  to 
give  them  the  studied  smoothness  characteristic  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  In  fact,  he  tried  to  make  Shakespeare  as  near 
like  Pope's  poetry  as  he  could. 

In  1726  Lewis  Theobald  published  Shakespeare  Bestored, 
with  many  corrections  of  Pope's  errors.  In  this  little  pam- 
phlet most  of  the  material  was  devoted  to  Hamlet.  Theobald's 
corrections  were  taken  by  Pope  in  very  bad  part ;  and  the  lat- 
ter tried  to  destroy  Theobald's  reputation  by  writing  satires 
against  him  and  by  injuring  him  in  every  possible  way  in  print. 
The  first  of  these  publications,  The  Dunciad^  appeared  in  1728  ; 
and  this,  the  greatest  satire  in  the  English  language,  was  so 
effective  as  to  have  obscured  Theobald's  real  merit  until  our 
own  day.  Theobald's  edition  of  Shakespeare  followed  in  1734, 
and  was  reprinted  in  1740.  It  is  famous  for  his  corrections  and 
improvements  of  the  text,  many  of  which  are  followed  by  all 
later  editors  of  Shakespeare.  The  most  notable  of  these  is 
Mrs.  Quickly's  remark  in  Palstaff's  deathbed  scene,  "  His  nose 
was  as  sharp  as  a  pen  and  a'  babbled  of  green  fields."  The 
previous  texts  had  given  "and  a  table  of  green  fields."  Pope 
had  said  that  this  nonsense  crept  in  from  the  name  of  the  prop- 
erty man  who  was  named  Greenfield,  and  thus  there  must  have 
been  a  stage  direction  here,  —  "Bring  in  a  table  of  Greenfield's," 

Theobald's  edition  was  followed  in  1744  by  Thomes  Hanmer's 
edition  in  six  volumes.  Hanmer  was  a  country  gentleman,  but 
not  much  of  a  scholar. 

Warburton's  edition  followed  in  1747.     In  1765  appeared 


HOW  SHAKESPEAREJ  GOT  INTO  PRINT    120 

Samuel  Johnson's  long-delayed  edition  in  eight  volumes.  Aside 
from  a  few  common-sense  explanations,  the  edition  is  not  of 
much  merit. 

Tyrwhitt's  edition  in  1766  was  followed  by  a  reprint  of  twenty 
of  the  early  quartos  by  George  Steevens  in  the  same  year.  Two 
years  later  came  the  edition  of  Edward  Capell,  the  greatest 
scholarly  work  since  Theobald's.  In  this  edition  was  the  first 
rigorous  comparison  between  the  readings  of  the  folios  and  the 
quartos.  His  quartos,  now  in  the  British  Museum,  are  of  the 
greatest  value  to  Shakespeare  scholars.  With  his  edition  begins 
the  tendency  to  get  back  to  the  earliest  form  of  the  text  and  not 
to  try  to  improve  Shakespeare  to  the  ideal  of  what  the  editor 
thinks  Shakespeare  should  have  said. 

In  1773  Johnson's  edition  was  revised  by  Steevens,  and  Per- 
icles was  readmitted.  This  was  a  valuable  but  crotchety  edi- 
tion. In  1790  Edmund  Malone  published  his  famous  edition 
in  ten  volumes.  No  Shakespearean  scholar  ranks  higher  than 
he  in  reputation.  Numerous  editions  followed  up  to  1855,  of 
which  the  most  important  is  James  Boswell's  so-called  Third 
Variorum  in  twenty-one  volumes.  In  1855-1861  was  published 
J.  0.  Halliwell's  edition  in  fifteen  volumes,  which  contains  enor- 
mous masses  of  antiquarian  material. 

In  1853  appeared  the  forgeries  of  J.  P.  Collier,  to  which  ref- 
erence is  made  elsewhere. 

In  1854-1861  appeared  the  edition  in  Germany  of  N.  Delius. 
The  Leopold  Shakespeare,  1876,  used  Delius's  text. 

In  1857-1865  appeared  the  first  good  American  edition  of  R.  G. 
White.  It  contained  many  original  suggestions.  Between  1868 
and  1866  appeared  the  edition  of  Clark  and  Wright,  known  as 
the  Cambridge  edition.  Mr.  W.  Aldis  Wright,  now  the  dean 
of  living  Shakespearean  scholars,  is  chiefly  responsible  for  this 
text.  It  was  reprinted  with  a  few  changes  into  the  Globe  edition, 
and  is  still  the  chief  popular  text. 

Prof.  W.  A.  Neilson's  single  volume  in  the  Cambridge  series, 
1906,  is  the  latest  scholarly  edition  in  America.  It  follows  in 
most  cases  the  positions  taken  by  Clark  and  Wright. 

Within  the  last  few  years  there  has  been  an  enormous  stimu- 


130    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

lus  to  Shakespeare  study.  The  chief  work  of  modern  Shake- 
spearean scholarship  is  the  still  incomplete  Variorum  edition  of 
Dr.  H.  H.  Furness  and  his  son. 

Other  aids  to  study  are  reprints  of  the  books  used  by  Shake- 
speare, facsimile  reprints  of  the  original  quartos  of  the  plays, 
and,  perhaps  as  useful  as  any  one  thing,  the  facsimile  reproduc- 
tion of  the  First  Folio.  The  few  perplexing  problems  that  the 
scholar  still  finds  in  the  text  of  Shakespeare  will  probably  never 
be  solved. 

On  the  subject  of  this  chapter,  consult  A.  W.  Pollard,  Shake- 
speare Folios  and  Quartos,  Methuen,  London,  1910;  Sidney  Lee, 
Introduction  to  the  facsimile  reproduction  of  the  First  Folio  by 
the  Oxford  University  Press  ;  T.  R.  Lounsbury,  The  Text  of 
Shakespeare,  New  York,  Scribners,  1906.  For  the  remarks  of 
critics  and  editors,  the  Variorum  edition  of  Dr.  H.  H.  Furness 
is  Invaluable. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE    PLATS    OF    THE    FIRST    PERIOD  IMITATION    AND 

EXPERIMENT 

1687  (?)-1594 

The  first  period  of  Shakespeare's  work  carries  him 
from  the  youthful  efforts  at  dramatic  construction  to 
such  mastery  of  dramatic  technique  and  of  original 
portrayal  of  life  as  raise  him,  when  aided  by  his  su- 
preme poetic  art,  above  all  other  living  dramatists.  It 
was  chiefly  a  period  in  which  the  young  poet,  full  of 
ambition,  curious  of  his  own  talents,  and  eager  for 
success,  was  feeling  his  way  among  the  different  types 
of  drama  which  he  saw  reaching  success  on  the  London 


The  longest  period  of  experiment  was  in  the  writing 
of  chronicle  histories.  The  experience  acquired  in 
these  six  plays,  all  derived  in  some  measure  from  earlier 
work  by  others,  made  Shakespeare  a  master  of  this 
type.  Next  in  importance  w  as  comedy,  chiefly  r om  antic, 
with  four  plays  of  widely  different  aim  and  merit. 
These  two  types  are  brought  to  the  highest  develop- 
ment in  the  dramatist's  second  period.  Tragedy  was 
to  wait  for  a  fuller  and  riper  experience.  What  the 
complete  earlier  version  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  was  like, 
we  have  only  a  faint  idea ;  it  was  obviously,  while  in- 
131 


132    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SIL\KESPEARE 

tensely  appealing,  the  work  of  a  young  and  immature 
poet.     Titus  Andronicus  led  nowhere  in  development. 

Christopher  Marlowe  remained  Shakespeare's  master 
in  the  drama  throughout  the  chronicle  plays  of  the 
period.  John  Lyly's  court  comedies  contained  most  of 
the  types  of  character  which  are  to  be  found  in  Lovers 
Labour's  Lost.  Throughout  the  period  Shakespeare 
grows  in  mastery  of  plot  and  of  his  dramatic  verse; 
but  his  chief  growth  is  away  from  this  imitation  of 
others  into  his  own  creative  portraiture  of  character. 
The  growth  from  the  bluff  soldier,  Talbot,  in  Henry 
VI  to  the  weak  but  appealing  Richard  II  is  no  less 
marked  than  is  that  from  the  fantastic  Armado  in 
Lovers  Labour's  Lost  to  the  unconsciously  ridiculous 
Bottom. 

Shakespeare's  greatest  achievements  in  this  period, 
aside  from  Borneo  and  Juliet  in  the  unknown  first  draft, 
are  the  characters  of  Richard  II  and  Richard  III,  the 
former  a  portrait  of  vanity  and  vacillation  mingled  with 
more  agreeable  traits,  lovable  gentleness  and  traces  at 
least  of  kingliness,  the  latter  a  Titanic  figure  possessed 
by  an  overmastering  passion. 

It  is  impossible  to  draw  a  satisfactory  line  of 
division  between  the  experimental  period  of  Shake- 
speare's work  and  the  period  of  comedy  which  follows. 
Two  plays,  A  Midsummer  NigMs  Dream  and  The  Mer- 
chant of  Venice^  lie  really  between  the  two.  The  chief 
arguments  for  an  early  grouping  seem  to  be  that  the 
former  is  in  some  measure  an  artificial  court  comedy, 
and  is  full  of  riming  speech  and  end-stopped  lines; 
the  latter  derives  some  help  from  Marlowe's  treatment 
of  The  Jew  of  Malta.    But,  on  the  other  hand,  the 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE   FIRST  PERIOD       133 

mastery  of  original  characterization  in  such  groups  as 
the  delicate  fairies  of  the  Dream,  or  those  who  gather 
at  the  trial  of  Tlie  Merchant,  might  justify  their  posi- 
tion in  the  second  period  rather  than  in  the  first.  On 
the  whole,  it  is  perhaps  wisest  to  let  metrical  differences 
govern,  and  so  to  put  Midsummer  NigMs  Dream  at  the 
end  of  Imitation  and  Experiment;  while  The  Merchant 
of  Venice  may  safely  usher  in  the  great  period  of 
comedy. 

The  three  plays  known  as  Tlie  Three  Parts  of  Henry 
VI,  together  with  Richard  the  Third,  constitute  the 
history  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses,  in  which  the  House 
of  York  fought  the  House  of  Lancaster  through  the 
best  part  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  lost  the  fight  and 
the  English  crown  in  1485,  a  hundred  years  before 
Shakespeare  came  to  London.  Although  these  plays 
have  but  slight  appeal  to  us  as  readers,  they  must  have 
been  highly  popular  among  Elizabethan  playgoers. 

The  First  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixth  deals  chiefly  with 
the  wars  of  England  and  France  which  center  about 
the  figures  of  Talbot,  the  English  commander,  and  Joan 
of  Arc,  called  Joan  la  Pucelle  (the  maiden).  The 
former  is  a  hero  of  battle,  who  dies  fighting  for  Eng- 
land. The  latter  is  painted  according  to  the  traditional 
English  view,  which  lasted  long  after  Shakespeare's 
time,  as  a  wicked  and  impure  woman,  in  league  with 
devils,  who  fight  for  her  against  the  righteous  power 
of  England.  We  are  glad  to  think  that  while  the 
Talbot  scenes  are  probably  Shakespeare's,  the  portrait 
of  La  Pucelle  is  not  from  his  hand,  as  we  shall  see. 
The  deaths  of  these  protagonists  prepares  the  way  for 
the  peace  which  Suffolk  concludes,  and  the  marriage 


134    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

which  he  arranges  between  Margaret  of  Anjou  and 
King  Henry. 

The  Second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixth  concerns  the  out- 
break of  strife  between  York  and  Lancaster,  but  chiefly 
the  overthrow  of  the  uncle  of  the  king,  Duke  Humphrey 
of  Gloucester,  as  Protector  of  the  Realm,  and  the  de- 
struction of  his  opponent,  the  Duke  of  Suffolk,  in  his 
turn.  The  play  ends  with  the  first  battle  of  St.  Albans 
(1455),  resulting  in  the  complete  triumph  of  Duke 
Richard  of  York,  in  open  rebellion  against  King 
Henry. 

The  Third  Part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixth  tells  of  the 
further  wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  in  the  course  of 
which  Richard  of  York  is  murdered,  and  his  sons, 
Edward  and  Richard,  keep  up  the  struggle,  while  War- 
wick, styled  the  "  Kingmaker,"  transfers  his  power  to 
Lancaster.  In  the  end  York  is  triumphant ;  and  while 
Henry  VI  and  his  son  are  murdered,  and  Warwick 
slain  in  battle  at  Barnet,  Edward  is  crowned  as  Ed- 
ward IV,  and  Richard  becomes  the  Duke  of  Gloucester. 

Authorship.  —  The  Three  Parts  of  Henry  the  Sixth  were  first 
printed  in  the  First  Folio,  1623.  Two  earlier  plays,  The  First 
Part  of  the  Contention  between  the  two  Noble  Houses  of  York 
and  Lancaster  (sometimes  called  1  Contention)^  and  The  True 
Tragedy  of  Bichard,  Duke  of  York  . .  .  with  the  whole  Conten- 
tion between  the  two  Houses  of  Lancaster  and  York  (2  Conten- 
tion), appeared  in  quarto  in  1594  and  1595  respectively.  These 
are  to  be  regarded  as  earlier  versions  of  II  and  III  Henry  F/.i 
For  the  First  Part  of  Henry  VI  no  dramatic  source  exists. 
The  ultimate  source  is,  of  course,  Holinshed's  Chronicles. 

The  authorship  of  these  plays  is  not  ascribed  to  any  dramatist, 
until  1623,  although,  as  we  have  seen,2  Robert  Greene  accuses 

1  Schellmg,  Elizabethan  Drama  I,  264.  2  gee  p.  8. 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       135 

Shakespeare  of  authorship  in  a  stolen  play,  by  applying  to  him 
a  line  from  ///  Henry  VI  which  had  appeared  earlier  in  2  Con- 
tention. Internal  study  of  the  three  plays,  however,  has  reduced 
the  problem  to  about  this  state  :  — 

The  First  Part  of  Henry  VI  is  thought  to  have  been  written 
by  Greene,  with  George  Peele  and  Marlowe  to  help.  To  this 
Shakespeare  was  allowed  to  add  a  few  scenes  on  a  later  revival 
of  the  play.  Some  critics  give  to  him  the  Talbot  scenes  and  the 
quarrel  in  the  Temple  ;  but  Professor  Neilson  warns  us  that  the 
grounds  for  this  and  other  assignments  of  authorship  in  the 
play  "are  in  the  highest  degree  precarious." 

The  two  Contentions  are  thought  to  have  been  chiefly  the  work 
of  Marlowe,  with  Greene  to  help  him.  Others  are  suggested  as 
assistants,  such  as  Lodge,  Peele,  and  Shakespeare.  In  the  re- 
vival of  the  two  Contentions,  Shakespeare's  work  amounted  to  a 
close  revision,  though  the  older  material  remained  in  larger 
part,  both  in  text  and  plot.  In  this  revision,  Marlowe  is  thought 
to  have  aided,  and  Greene's  bitter  attack  on  Shakespeare  may 
have  been  caused  by  the  fact  that  Shakespeare  had  so  supplanted 
him  as  collaborator  with  Marlowe,  then  the  greatest  dramatist 
of  England,  It  hardly  seems  likely  that  this  attack  would  have 
been  made  if  Shakespeare  had  had  any  share  in  the  first  ver- 
sions, The  Contentions. 

Date.  —  The  First  Fart  of  Henry  VI  is  thought  to  have  been 
the  play  at  the  Eose  Theatre  on  March  3,  1591-1592,  by  Lord 
Strange's  company,  since  a  reference  by  Nash  about  this  time 
refers  to  Talbot  as  a  stage  figure.  The  Second  and  Third 
Parts  have  no  evidence  other  than  that  of  style,  but  are  usu- 
ally assigned  to  the  period  1590-1592. 

Richard  the  Third  is  best  treated  at  this  point,  although 
in  the  date  of  composition  King  John  may  intervene 
between  it  and  III  Henry  VI.  It  is  the  tale  of  a  tyrant, 
who,  by  murdering  everybody  who  stands  in  his  way, 
including  his  two  nephews,  his  brother,  and  his  friend, 
wins  the  crown  of  England,  only  to  be  swept  by  irresist- 


136     AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

ible  popular  wrath,  into  ruin  and  death  on  Bosworth 
Field.  This  tyrant  is  scarcely  human,  but  rather  the 
impersonation  of  a  great  passion  of  ambition.  In 
this  respect,  as  well  as  in  lack  of  humor,  lack  of  develop- 
ment of  character,  and  in  other  ways  less  easy  to  grasp, 
Shakespeare  is  here  distinctly  imitative  of  Marlowe's 
method  in  plays  like  Tamhurlaine. 

Date.  —  Bichard  the  Third  was  very  popular  among  Eliza- 
bethans, for  quartos  appeared  in  1597, 1598  (then  first  ascribed  to 
Shakespeare),  1602, 1605,  1612,  1629,  1622,  and  1634.  The  First 
Folio  version  is  quite  different  in  detail  from  the  Quarto,  and 
is  thought  to  have  been  a  good  copy  of  an  acting  version.  The 
date  of  writing  can  hardly  be  later  than  1593. 

Source.  —  An  anonymous  play  called  The  True  Tragedie  of 
Bichard  7/7  had  appeared  before  Shakespeare's;  just  when  is  un- 
certain. A  still  earlier  play,  a  tragedy  in  Latin  called  Bichardus 
Tertius,  also  told  the  story.  Shakespeare's  chief  source  was, 
however,  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  which  learned  the  tradition  of 
Richard's  wickedness  from  a  life  of  that  king  written  in  Henry 
VII's  time,  and  ascribed  to  Sir  Thomas  More.  In  the  Chron- 
icles was  but  a  bare  outline  of  the  character  which  the  dramatist 
so  powerfully  developed. 

King  John,  so  far  as  its  central  theme  may  be  said  to 
exist,  portrays  the  ineffectual  struggles  of  a  crafty  and 
unscrupulous  coward  to  stick  to  England's  slippery 
throne.  At  first  King  John  is  successful.  Bribed 
with  the  rich  dowry  of  Blanch,  niece  of  England,  as  a 
bride  for  his  son  the  Dauphin,  King  Philip  of  France 
ceases  his  war  upon  England  in  behalf  of  Prince 
Arthur,  John's  nephew  and  rival.  When  the  Church 
turns  against  John  for  his  refusal  to  obey  the  Pope,  and 
Prance  and  Austria  continue  the  war,  John  is  victorious, 
and  captures  Prince  Arthur.     At  this  point  begins  his 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD      137 

downfall.  His  cruel  treatment  of  the  young  prince, 
while  not  actually  ending  in  the  murder  he  had  planned, 
drives  the  boy  to  attempted  escape  and  to  death.  The 
nobles  rise  and  welcome  the  Dauphin,  whose  invasion 
of  England  proves  fruitless,  it  is  true,  but  the  victory 
is  not  won  by  John,  and  the  king  dies  ignobly  at 
Swinstead  Abbey. 

Two  characters  rise  above  the  rest  in  this  drama 
of  unworthy  schemes,  —  Constance,  the  passionately 
devoted  mother  of  Prince  Arthur,  who  fights  for  her 
son  with  almost  tigress-like  ferocity,  and  Faulcon- 
bridge,  the  loyal  lieutenant  of  King  John,  cynical  and 
fond  of  bragging,  but  brave  and  patriotic,  and  gifted 
with  a  saving  grace  of  rough  humor,  much  needed  in 
the  sordid  atmosphere  he  breathes.  One  single  scene 
contains  a  note  of  pathos  otherwise  foreign  to  the 
play,  —  that  in  which  John's  emissary  Hubert  begins 
his  cruel  task  of  blinding  poor  Prince  Arthur,  but 
yields  to  pity  and  forbears. 

Date.  —  The  Troublesome  Baigne  was  published  in  1591,  and 
probably  written  about  that  time.  Shakespeare's  play  did  not 
appear  in  print  until  the  First  Folio,  1623.  Meres  mentions  it, 
however,  in  1598,  and  internal  evidence  of  meter  and  style,  as 
well  as  of  dramatic  structure,  puts  the  play  between  Bichard 
III  and  Bichard  II,  or  at  any  rate  close  to  them.  The  three 
plays  have  been  arranged  in  every  order  by  critics  of  authority. 
Perhaps  1592-1593  is  a  safe  date. 

Source.  — The  only  source  was  the  two  parts  of  The  Trouble- 
some Baigne  of  John,  King  of  England,  a  play  which  appeared 
anonymously  in  quarto  in  1591.  Shakespeare  compressed  the 
two  parts  into  one,  gaining  obvious  advantages  thereby,  but 
losing  also  some  incidents  without  which  the  later  play  is 
unmotivated.  The  hatred  felt  by  Faulconbridge  for  Austria 
was  due  in  the  earlier  version  to  the  legendary  belief  that 


138    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  his  father,  met  death  at  Austria's  hands. 
No  reference  to  this  is  made  by  Shakespeare,  but  the  hatred 
remains  as  a  motive.  In  the  opening  scene  between  the  Bastard 
and  his  mother,  Shakespeare's  condensation  has  injured  the 
story  somewhat.  But  most  of  his  changes  are  improvements. 
He  cut  out  the  pandering  to  religious  prejudice  which  in  the 
earlier  play  made  John  a  Protestant  hero  to  suit  Elizabethan 
opinion.  He  improved  the  exits  and  entrances,  divided  the 
scenes  in  more  effective  ways,  and  built  up  the  element  of  comic 
relief  in  Faulconbridge's  red-blooded  humor. 

The  numerous  alterations  from  historical  fact,  such  as  the 
youth  of  Arthur,  the  widowhood  of  Constance,  the  character 
of  Faulconbridge,  are  all  from  the  earlier  version,  as  is  the 
suppression  of  the  baron's  wars  and  Magna  Charta.  Shake- 
speare added  practically  nothing  to  the  action  in  his  source. 

A  still  earlier  play,  Kynge  Johan  by  Bishop  John  Bale 
(c.  1550),  had  nothing  to  do  with  later  versions. 

Richard  the  Second,  unlike  Richard  the  Thirds  is 
not  simply  the  story  of  one  man.  While  Richard  III 
is  on  the  stage  during  more  than  two-thirds  of  the 
latter  play,  Richard  II  appears  during  almost  exactly 
half  of  the  action.  Richard  III  dominates  his  play 
throughout ;  Richard  II  in  only  two  or  three  scenes. 
Richard's  two  uncles,  John  of  Gaunt  and  the  Duke  of 
York,  and  his  two  cousins,  Hereford  (Bolingbroke, 
later  Henry  IV)  and  Aumerle,  claim  almost  as  much 
of  our  attention  as  does  the  central  figure  of  the  play, 
the  light,  vain,  and  thoughtless  king. 

And  yet  with  all  this  improvement  in  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  leading  role  to  the  whole  picture,  Shake- 
speare  drew  a  far  more  real  and  comjplete^ character  in 
Richard  11  than  any  he  had  yet  portrayed  in  historical 
drama.  It  is  a  character  seen  in  many  lights.  _^t 
first  we  are  disappointed  with  Richard's  love  of  the 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       139 

spectacular  when  he  allows  Bolingbroke^s,  challenge 
to  Mowbray  to  go  as  far  as  the  actual  sounding  of  the 
trumpets  in  the  lists  before  he  casts  down  his  warder 
and  decrees  the  banishment  of  both.  A  little  later  we 
see  with  disgust  his  greedy  thoughtlessness,  when  he 
insults  the  last  hour  of  Johnjif  Gaunt  by  his  importu- 
nate visit,  and  without  a  word  of  regret  lays  hold  of 
his  dead  uncle's  property  to  help  on  his  own  Irish 
wars.  Nor^oes  our  respect  for  him  rise  at  all  when 
in  the  critical  moment,  upon  the  reti:|T'p,  nf  "RnlhifyhrnVft 
to  England,  Richard's  weak  will  vacillates  between 
action  and  unmanly  lament,  and  all  the  while  his 
vanity  delights  to  paint  his  misery  in  full-iucujth'd 
rhetoric,  Vanity  is  again  the  note  of  his  abdication, 
when  he  calls  for  a  mirror  in  which  to  behold  the 
face  that  has  borne  such  sorrow  as  his,  and  then  in  a 
fit  of  almost  childish  rage  dashes  the  glass  upon  the 
ground.  His  whole  life,  like  that  one  act,  has  been 
impulsive  and  futile.  "^ 

But  jopwj^at^  misfortune  and  degradation  have 
come  upon  King  Richard,  Shakespeare  compels  us 
to  turn  _f rom^  disgusi_JjQL4U  and  finally  almost  to 
^dmiratioai.  We  realize  that  after  all  Richard  is  a 
king,  and  that  his  wretched  state  demands  compas- 
sion. Moreover,  a  nobler  side  of  Richard's  charactey 
is  portrayed.  <^is  deeply  touching  farewell  to  his 
16™^  Queen,  as  he  goes  to  his  solitary  confinement, 
though  tinged  with  almost  unmanly  meekness  of 
spirit,  is  yet  poignant  with  true  grief.  ^jA.nd  the  last 
scene  of  all,  in  which  he  dies,  vainly  yet  bravely  resist- 
ing  his  murderers,  is  a  gallant  end  to  a  life  so  full  of 
indecision. 


140    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

In  strong  contrast  with  this  weak  and  still  absorbing 
figure  are  the  two  high-minded  and  patriotic  uncles ' 
of  King  Richard,  and  the  masterful  though  unscrupu-^ 
lous  Henry.  The  famous  prophetic  speech  of  dying 
John  of  Gajiint  is  committed  to  memory  by  every 
/English  schoolboy,  as  the  expression  of  the  highest 
OlQatriotism  in  the  noblest  poetry.  And  just  as  our 
attitude  towards  Richard  changes  from  contempt  to 
pity  and  even  admiration,  so  our  admiration  for 
Henry,  the  man  of  action  and,  as  he  calls  himself, 
^^  the  true-borne  Englishman/^  turns  into  indication 
at  his  usurpation  of  the  throne  and  his  connivance, 
to  use  no  stronger  term,  at  the  murder  of  his  sovereign. 
Throughout  the  play,  however,  Shakespeare  makes 
us  feel  that  the  national  cause  demands  Henry^s 
tnumph. 

Date.  —  Marlowe's  Edward  II  is  usually  dated  1593 ;  and 
Shakespeare's  Bichard  II  is  dated  the  year  following,  in  order 
to  accommodate  facts  to  theory.  The  frequency  of  rime  points 
to  an  earlier  date,  the  absence  of  prose  to  a  later  date.  Our 
only  certain  date  is  1597,  when  a  quarto  appeared.  Others  fol- 
lowed in  1598, 1608,  and  1615. 

A  play  "  of  the  deposing  of  Richard  II "  was  performed  by 
wish  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  in  London  streets  in  1601,  on  the  eve 
of  his  attempted  revolt  against  the  queen .  If  this  was  our  play, 
then  Essex  failed  as  signally  in  understanding  the  real  theme  of 
the  play  as  he  did  in  interpreting  the  attitude  of  Englishmen 
toward  him.  Both  the  one  and  the  other  condemned  usurpa- 
tion in  the  strongest  terms. 

Source.  —  Holinshed's  Chronicles  furnished  Shakespeare  with 
but  the  bare  historical  outline.  It  is  usual  to  suggest  that  Mar- 
lowe's portrayal  of  a  similarly  weak  figure  with  a  similarly 
tragic  end  suggested  Shakespeare's  play  ;  and  this  may  be, 
though  there  is  nothing  to  indicate  direct  influence. 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       141 

Titus  Andronicus  has  a  plot  so  revolting  to  modern 
readers  that  many  critics  like  to  follow  the  seven- 
teenth-century tradition,  which  tells,  according  to  a 
writer  who  wanted  to  justify  his  own  tinkering,  that 
Shakespeare  added  "  some  master-touches  to  one  or 
two  of  the  principal  characters,"  and  nothing  more. 
But  unfortunately  not  only  the  phraseology  and  the 
meter,  but  the  more  important  external  evidences 
point  to  Shakespeare,  and,  however  we  might  wish  it, 
we  cannot  find  grounds  to  dismiss  the  theory  that 
Shakespeare  was  at  least  responsible  for  the  rewriting 
of  an  older  play. 

No  play  better  deserves  the  type  name  of  *  tragedy 
of  blood.'  The  crimes  which  disfigure  its  scenes 
seem  to  us  unnecessarily  wanton.  Briefly,  the  struggle 
is  between  Titus,  conqueror  of  the  Goths,  and  Tamora, 
their  captive  queen,  who  marries  the  Roman  emperor, 
and  who  would  revenge  Titus's  sacrifice  of  her  son  to 
the  shades  of  his  own  slain  sons.  From  the  first  five 
minutes,  during  which  a  noble  Goth  is  hacked  to 
pieces  —  off  stage,  mercifully  —  to  the  last  minute  of 
carnage,  when  the  entire  company  go  hands  all  round 
in  murder,  fifteen  persons  are  slain,  and  other  crimes 
no  less  horrible  perpetrated.  Every  one  at  some  time 
gets  his  revenge ;  and  the  play  is  entirely  made  up  of 
plotting,  killing,  gloating,  and  counterplotting.  The 
inhumanly  brutal  Aaron,  the  blackamoor  lover  of 
Tamora,  is  archvillain  in  all  this ;  but  the  ungovern- 
able passions  of  Titus  render  him  scarcely  more  at- 
tractive. 

The  pity  of  it  is  that  the  young  Shakespeare  ap- 
parently wasted  upon  this  slaughtering  much  genuine 


142    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

poetic  art,  and  no  little  elaboration  of  plot.  But  he 
was  writing  what  the  public  of  that  day  enjoyed. 
Developed  by  such  real  artists  as  Kyd,  the  tragedy  of 
blood,  like  the  modern  "  thriller,"  had  about  1590  an 
enormous  success.  It  is  well  for  us  to  remember,  too, 
that  out  of  one  of  these  tragedies  of  revenge  and  blood 
sprang  the  great  tragedy  of  Hamlet. 

Date.  —  The  most  recent  authorities  put  the  play  as  written 
not  long  before  the  publication  of  the  First  Quarto,  1594.  The 
Stationers'  Register  records  it  on  February  6,  1593-4.  Second 
and  Third  Quartos  followed  in  1600  and  1611.  None  of  these 
ascribe  the  play  to  Shakespeare.  It  is,  however,  included  in 
the  First  Folio, 

Authorship  and  Source.  —  Richard  Henslowe,  the  manager,  re- 
corded in  his  Diary,  April  11,  1591,  the  performance  of  a 
new  play  Tittus  and  Vespacia.  In  a  German  version,  Tito 
Andronico,  printed  in  a  collection  of  1620,  Lucius  is  called 
Vespasian  ;  and  thus  we  have  a  slight  ground  for  belief  that  the 
entry  of  Henslowe  refers  to  an  early  play  about  our  Titus.  A 
Dutch  version,  Aran  en  Titus,  appeared  in  1641.  This  ap- 
pears to  have  been  based  on  another  relation  of  the  story,  earlier 
and  cruder  than  Shakespeare's.  The  Shakespearean  version 
probably  came  from  these  two  earlier  plays,  with  considerable 
additions  in  plot. 

The  two  latest  students  of  the  play,  Dr.  Fuller  and  Mr. 
Robertson,  differ  as  far  as  they  well  can  on  the  question  of  au- 
thorship. The  former  believes  Shakespeare  wrote  every  line  of 
the  present  play  ;  the  latter  that  he  wrote  none  of  it,  and  that 
Greene  and  Peele  had  their  full  share.  Kyd  and  Marlowe  are 
assigned  as  authors  by  others.  One  fact  stands  clear,  that  in 
the  face  of  the  evidence  of  the  First  Folio  and  of  Meres,  no  con- 
clusive internal  evidence  has  disposed  of  the  theory  of  Shake- 
spearean authorship.  The  play  was  enormously  popular,  if  we 
may  judge  by  contemporary  references  to  it,  and  a  mistake  in 
attribution  by  Meres  would  therefore  have  been  the  more  re- 


THE   PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       143 

markable.  Incredible,  too,  as  it  may  seem,  the  earlier  versions 
must  have  been  more  revolting  than  Shakespeare's ;  so  that 
there  is  reaUy  aiift  into  higher  drama. 

Romeo  and  Juliet  stands  out  from  the  other  great 
tragedies  of  Shakespeare,  not  only  in  point  of  time, 
but  in  its  central  theme.  It  deals  with  the  power  of 
nature  in  awaking  youth  to  full  manhood  and  woman- 
hood through  the  sudden  coming  of  pure  and  supreme 
love ;  with  the  danger  which  always  attends  the  pre- 
cipitate call  of  this  awakening ;  and  with  the  sudden 
storm  which  overcasts  the  brilliant  day  of  passion. 
The  enmity  of  the  rival  houses  of  Montague  and  Capu- 
let,  to  which  Romeo  and  Juliet  belong,  is  but  a  con- 
crete form  of  this  danger  that  ever  waits  when  nature 
prompts.  Romeo's  fancied  love  for  another  disap- 
pears like  a  drop  of  water  on  a  stone  in  the  sun,  when 
his  glance  meets  Juliet's  at  the  Capulet's  ball.  Love 
takes  equally  sudden  hold  of  her.  Worldly  and  reli- 
gious caution  seek  to  stem  the  flood  of  passion,  or  at 
least  to  direct  it.  The  lovers  are  married  at  Friar 
Laurence's  cell;  but  in  the  sudden  whirl  of  events 
that  follow  the  friar's  amiable  schemes,  one  slight 
error  on  his  part  .wastes  all  that  glorious  passion  and 
youth  have  won.  It  was  not  his  fault,  after  all ;  such 
is  the  eternal  tragedy  when  Youth  meets  Love,  and 
Nature  leads  them  unrestrained  to  peril. 

In  perfection  of  dramatic  technique  parts  of  this 
play  rank  with  the  very  best  of  Shakespeare's  work. 
When  to  this  is  added  the  extraordinary  beauty  and 
fire  of  the  poetry,  and  the  brilliancy  of  color  and  stage 
picture  afforded  by  the  setting  in  old  Verona,  it  is  no 
wonder  that  to-day  no  mouthing  of   the  words,  no 


144    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

tawdriness  of  setting,  and  no  wretchedness  of  acting 
can  hinder  the  supreme  appeal  of  this  play  to  audi- 
ences all  over  the  world.  The  chief  characters  are 
well  contrasted  by  the  dramatist.  Romeo,  affecting 
sadness,  but  in  reality  merry  by  nature,  becomes 
grave  when  the  realization  of  love  comes  upon  him. 
Juliet,  when  love  comes,  rises  gladly  to  meet  its 
fuU  claim.  She  is  the  one  who  plans  and  dares, 
and  Romeo  the  one  who  listens.  Contrasted  with 
Romeo  is  his  friend,  Mercutio,  gay  and  daring,  loving 
and  light-hearted;  contrasted  with  Juliet  is  her  old 
nurse,  devoted,  like  the  family  cat,  but  unscrupulous, 
vain,  and  worldly,  —  a  great  comic  figure. 

Date.  —  There  is  throughout  the  play,  but  chiefly  in  the 
rimed  passages  in  the  earlier  parts,  a  great  deal  of  verbal  con- 
ceit and  playing  upon  words,  which  mark  immaturity.  The 
use  of  sonnets  in  two  places,  and  the  abundance  of  rime,  point 
also  to  early  work  ;  but  the  dramatic  technique  and  the 
development  of  character  equal  the  work  of  later  periods. 

The  First  Quarto  is  a  garbled  copy  taken  down  in  the  theater. 
It  was  printed  in  1597.  Its  title  claims  that  "it  hath  been 
often  (with  great  applause)  plaid  publiquely,  by  the  right 
Honourable  the  L.  of  Hunsdon  his  servants."  The  company 
in  which  Shakespeare  acted  was  so  called  from  July,  1596,  to 
April,  1597.  The  Second  Quarto,  "  newly  corrected,  augmented, 
and  amended,"  appeared  in  1599,  and  is  the  basis  of  all  later 
texts.     Three  others  followed  — 1609,  one  undated,  and  1637. 

It  is  generally  held  that  Shakespeare  wrote  much,  perhaps 
all,  of  the  play  in  the  early  nineties,  and  that  he  revised  it  for 
production  about  1597.  The  play  is  therefore  a  stepping-stone 
between  the  first  and  second  periods  of  his  work. 

Source.  —  The  development  of  the  story  has  been  traced 
from  Luigi  da  Porto's  history  of  Romeo  and  Giulietta  (pr.  1530 
at  Venice)  through  Bandello,  Boisteau,  and  Painter's  Palace  of 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       145 

Pleasure,  to  Arthur  Brooke's  poem  Bomeus  and  Juliet  (1562), 
and  to  a  lost  English  play  which  Brooke  says  in  his  address 
"  To  the  Reader  "  he  had  seen  on  the  stage,  but  is  now  known 
only  through  a  Dutch  play  of  1630  based  upon  it. 

The  part  in  which  Shakespeare  altered  the  action  most 
notably  is  the  first  scene,  one  of  the  most  masterly  expositions 
of  a  dramatic  situation  ever  written.  The  nurse  is  borrowed 
from  Brooke,  the  death  of  Mercutio  from  the  old  play.  The 
whole  is,  however,  completely  transfused  by  the  welding  fire  of 
genius. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost.  —  Obviously  imitative  of  the 
comedies  of  John  Lyly,  Lovers  Labour's  Lost  is  a 
light,  pleasant  court  comedy,  with  but  a  slight  thread 
of  plot.  The  king  of  Navarre  and  three  of  his  nobles 
forswear  for  three  years  the  society  of  ladies  in  order 
to  pursue  study.  This  plan  is  interrupted  by  the 
Princess  of  France,  who  with  three  ladies  comes  on  an 
embassy  to  Navarre.  The  inevitable  happens;  the 
gentlemen  fall  in  love  with  the  ladies,  and,  after 
ineffectual  struggles  to  keep  their  oaths,  give  up  the 
pursuit  of  learning  for  that  of  love.  This  runs  on 
merrily  enough  in  courtly  fashion  till  the  announce- 
ment of  the  death  of  the  king  of  France  ends  the 
embassy,  and  the  lovers  are  put  on  a  year's  probation 
of  constancy.  In  the  subplot,  or  minor  story,  the 
play  is  notable  for  the  burlesquing  of  two  types  of 
character  —  a  pompous  pedantic  schoolmaster,  and  a 
braggart  who  always  speaks  in  high-flown  metaphor. 
These  two,  happily  contrasted  with  a  country  curate, 
a  court  page,  and  a  country  clown  with  his  lass,  make 
much  good  sport. 

It  is  often  said,  but  as  we  believe  without  sufficient 
proof,  that  the  wit  combats  of  the  lords  and  ladies. 


146    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

and  the  artificial  speech  of  the  sonneteering  courtiers, 
were  also  introduced  for  burlesque.  These  elements 
appear,  however,  in  other  plays  than  this,  with  no 
intention  of  burlesque ;  and  it  seems  probable  that 
Shakespeare  greatly  enjoyed  this  display  of  his  power 
as  a  master  in  the  prevailing  fashion  of  courtly  rep- 
artee. In  this  fashion,  as  well  as  in  the  handling 
of  the  low-comedy  figures,  and  in  other  ways,  Shake- 
speare followed  in  the  steps  of  John  Lyly,  the  author 
of  the  novel  Euphues  and  of  the  seven  court  comedies 
written  in  the  decade  before  Lovers  Labour^  s  Lost. 
Shakespeare's  play,  however,  far  surpasses  those 
which  it  imitated. 

Date.  —  The  date  of  Love's  Labour'' s  Lost  is  entirely  a 
matter  of  conjecture.  It  may  well  have  been  the  very  earliest 
of  Shakespeare's  comedies.  Most  scholars  agree  that  the 
characteristics  of  style  to  which  we  have  referred,  together 
with  the  great  use  of  rime  (see  p.  81)  and  the  immaturity  of  the 
play  as  a  whole,  must  indicate  a  very  early  date,  and  therefore 
put  the  play  not  later  than  1591. 

A  quarto  was  published  in  1598,  "  newly  corrected  and  aug- 
mented by  W.  Shakespere."  The  corrections,  from  certain 
mistakes  of  the  printer,  appear  to  be  in  the  speeches  of  the  wit- 
tiest of  the  lords  and  ladies,  Biron  and  Rosaline.  The  play 
next  appeared  in  the  Folio. 

Source.  —  No  direct  source  has  been  discovered.  In  1586, 
Catherine  de'  Medici,  accompanied  by  her  ladies,  visited  the 
court  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  and  attempted  to  settle  the  disputes 
between  that  prince  and  her  son,  Henry  III.  Other  hints  may 
also  have  come  from  French  history.  The  masque  of  Muscovites 
may  have  been  based  on  the  joke  played  on  a  Russian  ambassador 
in  York  Gardens  in  1582,  when  the  ambassador  was  hoping  to 
get  a  lady  of  Elizabeth's  court  as  a  wife  for  the  Czar.  A  mock- 
ing presentation  of  this  lady  was  made  with  much  ceremony. 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       147 

The  Comedy  of  Errors.  —  Mistaken  identity  (which 
the  Elizabethans  called  "Error")  is  nearly  always 
amusing,  whether  on  the  stage  or  in  actual  life.  The 
Comedy  of  Errors  is  a  play  in  which  this  situation  is 
developed  to  the  extreme  of  improbability;  but  we 
lose  sight  of  this  in  the  roaring  fun  which  results. 
Nowadays  we  should  call  a  play  of  this  type  a  farce, 
since  most  of  the  fun  comes  in  this  way  from  situations 
which  are  improbable,  and  since  the  play  depends  on 
these  for  success  rather  than  on  characterization  or 
dialogue. 

A  merchant  of  Syracuse  has  had  twin  sons,  and 
bought  twin  servants  for  them.  His  wife  with  one  twin 
son  and  his  twin  slave  has  been  lost  by  shipwreck  and 
has  come  to  live  in  Ephesus.  The  other  son  and  slave, 
when  grown,  have  started  out  to  find  their  brothers, 
and  the  father,  some  years  later,  starts  out  to  find  him. 
They  come  to  Ephesus,  and  an  amusing  series  of  errors 
at  once  begins.  The  wife  takes  the  wrong  twin  for 
her  husband,  the  master  beats  the  wrong  slave,  the 
wrong  son  disowns  his  father,  the  twin  at  Ephesus  is 
arrested  instead  of  his  brother,  and  the  twin  slave 
Dromio  of  Syracuse  is  claimed  as  a  husband  by  a  black 
kitchen  girl  of  Ephesus.  The  situation  gets  more  and 
more  mixed,  until  at  last  the  real  identity  of  the 
strangers  from  Syracuse  is  established,  and  all  ends 
happily. 

Date.  —  There  is  much  wordplay  of  a  rather  cheap  kind, 
much  doggerel,  and  much  jingling  rime  in  this  play.  All  these 
things  point  to  early  work.  A  reference  (III,  ii,  125-127)  to 
France  "  making  war  against  her  heir"  admits  the  play  to  the 
period  1585-1594,  when  Henry  of  Navarre  was  received  as  lung 


148    AN  mTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  France.    The  play  was  probably  written  not  later  than  1591. 
The  play  was  first  printed  in  the  First  Folio. 

Source.  —  Shakespeare  borrowed  most  of  his  plot  from  the 
Menaechmi  of  Plautus.  Shakespeare  added  to  Plautus's  story 
the  second  twin-slave  and  the  parents,  together  with  the  girl 
whom  the  elder  twin  meets  and  loves  in  Syracuse.  This  elabo- 
ration of  the  plot  adds  much  to  the  attractiveness  of  the  whole 
story.  From  the  Amphitruo  of  Plautus,  Shakespeare  derived 
the  doubling  of  slaves,  and  the  scene  in  which  the  younger  twin 
and  his  slave  are  shut  out  of  their  own  home. 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  is  the  first  of  the  series 
of  Shakespeare's  romantic  comedies.  Our  interest 
in  this  play  turns  upon  the  purely  romantic  characters ; 
two  friends,  one  true,  the  other  recreant;  the  true 
friend  exiled  to  an  outlaw's  life  in  a  forest,  the  false 
in  favor  at  court ;  two  loving  girls,  one  fair  and  radiant, 
the  other  dark  and  slighted,  and  following  her  lover 
in  boy's  dress ;  two  clowns,  Speed  and  Lance,  one  a 
mere  word  tosser,  the  other  of  rare  humor.  The  plot 
is  of  slighter  importance ;  a  discovered  elopement,  and 
a  maiden  rescued  from  rude,  uncivil  hands,  are  the 
only  incidents  of  account.  All  ends  happily  as  in 
romance,  and  the  recreant  friend  is  forgiven. 

The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  was  an  experiment 
along  certain  directions  which  were  later  to  repay  the 
dramatist  most  richly.  Here  first  an  exquisite  lyric  in- 
terprets the  romantic  note  in  the  play;  here  first  the 
production  of  a  troth-plight  ring  confounds  the  faith- 
less lover,  and  here  we  first  meet  one  of  the  charming 
group  of  loving  ladies  in  disguise. 

But  as  a  whole  the  play  is  disappointing.  The  plot 
is  too  fantastic ;  Proteus  too  much  of  a  cad ;  Julia, 
though  brave  and  modest,  is  yet  too  faithful ;  Valentine 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       149 

too  easy  a  friend.  The  illusion  of  romance  throws  a 
transitory  glamour  over  the  scene,  but,  save  in  the  de- 
velopment of  character,  the  play  seems  immature, 
when  compared  with  the  greater  comedies  that  fol- 
lowed it. 

Date.  —  The  first  mention  of  the  play  is  by  Meres  (1598)  ; 
the  first  print  that  in  the  First  Folio  (1623).  The  presence  of 
alternate  riming  sonnets  and  doggerel  rime  on  the  one  hand, 
and  of  a  number  of  double  endings  on  the  other,  render  1592  a 
reasonable  date.  In  its  development  of  character  it  marks  a 
great  advance  over  the  other  two  comedies  of  this  period. 

Source.  —  The  chief  source  v^as  a  story  of  a  shepherdess,  an 
episode  in  the  Spanish  novel,  Diana  Enamorada,  by  Jorge  de 
Montemayor  (1592).  Shakespeare  probably  read  it  in  an 
English  translation  by  B.  Yonge,  which  had  been  in  Ms.  about 
ten  years.  This  story  gives  Julia's  part  of  the  play,  but  contains 
no  Valentine.  The  Silvia  of  the  story,  Celia,  falls  in  love  in- 
stead with  the  disguised  Felismena,  and  when  rejected  kills 
herself.  Whether  it  was  Shakespeare  who  felt  the  need  of  a 
Valentine  to  support  the  tale,  or  whether  this  was  done  in  the 
lost  play  of  Felix  and  Philiomena,  acted  in  1584,  cannot  be 
told.  The  Valentine  element  may  have  been  borrowed  from 
another  play,  of  which  a  German  version  exists  (1620) . 

Midsummer  Night's  Dream  is  Shakespeare's  experi- 
ment in  the  fairy  play.  Four  lovers,  two  young  Athe- 
nians of  high  birth  and  their  sweethearts,  are,  almost 
inextricably  tangled  by  careless  Robin  Goodf  ellow,  who 
has  dropped  the  juice  of  love  in  idleness  upon  the  eyes 
of  the  wrong  lovers.  King  Oberon  tricks  his  capricious 
and  resentful  little  queen,  by  the  aid  of  the  same  juice, 
into  the  absurdest  infatuation  for  a  clownish  weaver, 
who  has  come  out  with  his  mates  to  rehearse  a  play  to 
celebrate  Theseus' s  wedding,  but  has  fallen  asleep  and 


150    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

wakened  to  find  an  ass's  head  planted  upon  him.  All 
comes  right,  as  it  ever  must  in  fairyland;  the  true 
lovers  are  reunited;  the  faithful  unloved  lady  gets  her 
faithless  lover;  Titania  repents  and  is  forgiven ;  and 
Theseus's  weddingis  graced  by  the  "mirthfullest  tragedy 
that  ever  was  seen." 

We  have  in  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  three  distinct 
groups  of  characters — the  lovers,  the  city  clowns  re- 
hearsing for  the  play,  and  the  fairies.  These  three 
diverse  groups  are  combined  in  the  most  skillful  way 
by  an  intricate  interweaving  of  plot  and  by  the  final 
appearance  of  all  three  groups  at  the  wedding  festivities 
of  the  Duke  of  Athens  and  his  Amazon  bride  Hypolita. 
The  characterization,  light  but  delicate  throughout, 
the  mastery  of  the  intricate  story,  the  perfection  of  the 
comic  parts,  and  the  unsurpassed  lyrical  power  of  the 
poetry,  are  all  the  evidence  we  need  that  Shakespeare 
is  now  his  own  master  in  the  drama,  and  can  pass  on 
to  the  supreme  heights  of  his  art.  He  has  learned  his 
trade  for  good  and  all. 

It  is  not  a  bad  way  of  placing  the  last  of  the  come- 
dies in  the  first  period  of  Shakespeare's  production, 
to  say  that  it  is  the  counterpart  in  comedy  of  Borneo 
and  Juliet.  Like  Romeo,  Lysander  has  made  love  to 
Hermia,  has  sung  at  her  window  by  moonlight,  and  has 
won  her  heart,  while  her  father  has  promised  her  hand 
to  another.  Like  the  lovers  in  the  tragedy,  Lysander 
and  Hermia  plan  flight,  and  an  error  in  this  plan  would 
have  been  as  fatal  as  it  was  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  but 
for  the  kind  interposition  of  the  fairies.  Again,  the 
"tedious  brief  scene"  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  per- 
formed by  the  rustics  at  the  close  of  the  play,  is  noth- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  PERIOD       l5l 

ing  but  a  delightful  parody  on  the  very  theme  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  even  to  the  mistaken  death,  and  the  suicide 
of  the  heroine  upon  realization  of  the  truth.  At  the 
end  of  the  parody,  as  if  in  mockery  of  the  Capulets 
and  Montagues,  Bottom  starts  up  to  tell  us  that  "  the 
wall  is  down  that  parted  their  fathers."  Finally,  the 
whole  fairy  story  is  the  creation  of  Shakespeare  in  a 
Mercutio  mood. 

In  the  diversity  of  its  metrical  form.  Midsummer 
NigMs  Dream  is  also  the  counterpart  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  The  abundance  of  rimed  couplet,  combined 
wherever  there  is  intensity  of  feeling  with  a  perfect 
form  of  blank  verse,  is  reminiscent  of  the  earlier  play. 
Passages  of  equally  splendid  poetic  power  meet  us  all 
through,  while  at  the  same  time  we  feel  the  very  charm 
of  youthful  fervor  in  expression  that  the  tragedy  dis- 
played. 

Date.  —  There  is  nothing  certain  to  guide  us  in  assigning  a 
date  to  the  play,  except  the  mention  of  it  in  Meres's  list,  in 
1598.  The  absence  of  a  uniform  structure  of  verse,  the  large 
proportion  of  rime  (partly  due,  of  course,  to  the  nature  of  the 
play),  the  unequal  measure  of  characterization,  and  the  number 
of  passages  of  purely  lyric  beauty  argue  an  earlier  date  than 
students  who  notice  only  the  skillful  plot  structure  are  willing 
to  assign.  Perhaps  1593-5  would  indicate  this  variation  in 
authorities.  Some  evidence,  of  the  slightest  kind,  is  advanced 
for  1594.  A  quarto  was  printed  in  1600,  another  with  the 
spurious  date  1600,  really  in  1619. 

Source.  —  The  plot  of  the  lovers  has  no  known  direct  source. 
The  Diana  Enamorada  has  a  love  potion  with  an  effect  similar 
to  that  of  Oberon's.  The  wedding  of  Theseus  and  the  Amazon 
queen  is  the  opening  theme  of  Chaucer's  KnighVs  Tale,  and 
some  minor  details  may  also  have  been  borrowed  from  that 
story.    No  doubt,  Shakespeare  had  also  read  for  details  North's 


152    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

account  of  Theseus  in  his  translation  of  Plutarch.  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe  came  originally  from  Ovid's  Metamorphoses^  which  had 
been  translated  into  English  before  this  time.  Chaucer  tells 
the  same  story  in  his  Legend  of  Good  Women. 

The  fairies  are  almost  entirely  Shakespeare's  creation.  Ti- 
tania  was  one  of  Ovid's  names  for  Diana ;  Oberon  was  a  common 
name  for  the  fairy  king,  both  in  the  Faerie  Queene  and  else- 
where. Robin  Goodfellow  was  a  favorite  character  among  the 
common  folks.  But  fairies,  as  we  all  know  them,  are  like  the 
Twins  in  Through  the  Looking-glass,  things  of  the  fancy  of  one 
man,  and  that  man  Shakespeare. 

There  is  the  atmosphere  of  a  wedding  about  the  whole  play, 
and  this  fact  has  led  most  scholars  to  think  that  the  play  was 
written  for  some  particular  wedding,  — just  whose  has  never  been 
settled.  The  flattery  of  the  virgin  Queen  (II,  i,  157  f .)  and  other 
references  to  purity  might  show  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  one 
of  the  wedding  guests. 


CHAPTER  XI 

'  THE   PLATS    OF    THE    SECOND    PERIOD  —  COMEDY    AND 
HISTORY 

It  is  difficult  for  us  of  to-day  to  realize  that  Shake- 
speare was  ever  less  than  the  greatest  dramatist  of  his 
time,  to  think  of  him  as  the  pupil  and  imitator  of 
other  dramatists.  He  did,  indeed,  pass  through  this 
stage  of  his  development  with  extraordinary  rapidity, 
so  that  its  traces  are  barely  perceptible  in  the  later 
plays  of  his  First  Period.  In  the  plays  of  his  Second 
Period  even  these  traces  disappear.  If  his  portrayal 
of  Shylock  shows  the  influence  of  Marlowe's  Jew  of 
Malta,  it  is  in  no  sense  derivative,  and  it  is  the  last 
appearance  in  Shakespeare's  work  of  characterization 
clearly  dependent  upon  the  plays  of  his  predecessors. 
However  much  Shakespeare's  choice  of  themes  may 
have  been  determined  by  the  public  taste  or  by  the 
work  of  his  fellows,  in  the  creation  of  character  he  is 
henceforth  his  own  master.  Having  acquired  this 
mastery,  he  uses  it  to  depict  life  in  its  most  joyous 
aspect.  For  the  time  being  he  dwells  little  upon  men's 
failures  and  sorrows.  He  does  not  ignore  life's  darker 
side,  —  he  loved  life  too  well  for  that,  —  but  he  uses  it 
merely  as  a  background  for  pictures  of  youth  and 
happiness  and  success.  Although  among  the  comedies 
of  this  period  he  wrote  also  three  historical  plays,  they 
153 


154    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

have  not  the  tragic  character  of  the  earlier  histories. 
They^deal  with  youth  and  hope  instead  of  crime, 
weakness,  and  faihire.  In  the  two  parts  of  Henry  IV 
there_is  quite  as  much  comedy  as  there  is  history ;  in 
^Henry  V,  even  though  the  comic  interest  is  slighter, 
the  theme  is  still  one  of  youth  and  joy  as  personified 
in  the  figure  of  the  vigorous,  successful  young  king. 
For  convenience'  sake,  however,  we  may  separate  the 
histories  from  the  comedies.  To  do  this  we  shall 
have  to  depart  somewhat  from  chronological  order, 
and,  since  there  are  fewer  histories,  we  shall  consider 
them  first. 

Henry  IV,  Part  I.  —  To  the  development  of  Henry 
V  from  the  wayward  prince  to  one  of  England's 
most  beloved  heroes,  Shakespeare  devoted  three  plays, 
Henry  IV,  Parts  I  and  II,  and  Henry  V.  The  his- 
torical event  around  which  the  first  of  these  centers 
is  the  rebellion  of  the  Percies,  which  culminated  in 
the  defeat  and  death  of  Harry  Percy,  ^  Hotspur,'  on 
Shrewsbury  field.  In  Richard  II,  Shakespeare  had 
foreshadowed  what  was  to  come.  The  deposed  king 
had  prophesied  that  his  successor,  Henry  Bolingbroke, 
crowned  as  Henry  IV,  would  fall  out  with  the  great 
Percy  family  which  had  put  him  on  the  throne ;  that 
the  Percies  would  never  be  satisfied  with  what  Henry 
would  do  for  them ;  and  that  Henry  would  hate  and 
distrust  them  on  the  ground  that  those  who  had  made 
a  king  could  unmake  one  as  well.  And  this  prophecy 
was  fulfilled.  Uniting  with  the  ^cots  under  Douglas, 
with  the  Archbishop  of  York,  with  _Glendower,  who 
was  seeking  to  reestablish  the  independence^f  Wales, 
and  with  Mortimer,  the  natural  successor  of  Richard, 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     155 

the  Percies  raised  the  standard  of  revolt.  What 
mighrhave  happened  had  all  things  gone  as  they  were 
planned,  we  can  never  know;  but  Northumberland, 
the  head  of  the  family,  feigned  sickness ;  Glendower 
andTMortimer  were  kept  away ;  the  Archbishop  dallied ; 
andfailure  was  the  result.  This  situation  gave  Shake- 
speare an  opportunity  to  paint  a  number  of  remark- 
able portraits ;  but  the  scheming,  crafty  Worcester,  the 
vacillating  Northumberland,  the  mystic  Glendower. 
are  alFovershadowed  by  the  figure  of  Hotspur,  wrong- 
headed,  impulsive,  yet  so  aflame  with  young  life  and 
enthusiasm,  so  ready  to  dare  all  for  honor's  sake,  that 
•  he  is  almost  more  attractive  than  the  Prince.. Jum^elf. 
Over  against  the  older  leaders  of  the  rebellion  stands 
the  lonely  figure  of  Henry  IV,  misunderstood  and 
little  loved  by  his  sons,  who  has  centered  his  whole 
existence  upon  getting  and  keeping  the  throne  of 
England.  To  this  one  end  he  bends  every  energy  of 
his  shrewd,  strong,  hard  nature.  Such  a  man  could 
never  understand  a  personality  like  that  of  his  older 
son,  nor  could  the  son  understand  the  father.  |*riDce 
teal,  loving  life  in  all  its  manifestations,  joy  in  all  its 
forms,  could  find  small  satisfaction  in  the  rigid  eti- 
quette of  a  loveless  court  so  long  as  it  offered  him 
an  opportunity  for  little  more  than  formal  activity. 
When  the  rebellion  of  the  Percies  showed  him  that  he 
could  do  the  state  real  service,  he  seized  his  opportu- 
nity gladly,  gayly,  modestly .\  On  his  father's  cause  he 
centered  the  energies  wliicn  he  had  previously  scat- 
tered. With  this  new  demand  to  meet,  he  no  longer 
had  time  for  his  old  companions.  His  old  life  was 
thrown  off  like  a  coat  discarded  under  stress  of  work. 


I 


156    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Even  before  that  time  came,  however,  Hal  was  not 
one  who  could  enjoy  ordinary  low  company;  but  the 
friends  which  had  distracted  him  were  far  from  ordi- 
nary. In  Falstaff,  the  leader  of  the  riotous  group, 
Shakespeare  created  one  of  the  greatest  comic  figures 
in_  all  literature.  Never  at  a  loss,  Falstaff  masters 
alike  sack,  difficulties,  and  companions.  He  is  an  in- 
carnation of  ;ioy  for  whom  moral  laws  dOJlfit  exist. 
Because  he  will  not  fight  when  he  sees  no  chance  of 
victory,  he  has  been  called  a  coward,  but  no  coward 
ever  had  such  superb  coolness  in  the  face  of  danger. 
Fulylaff'a  conduct  m  a  light  is  explained  by  his  con- 
tempt for  all  conventions  which  bring  no  joy — a 
standard  which  reduces  honor  to  a  mere  word.  So 
full  of  joy  was  he  that  he  inspired  it  in  his  compan- 
ions.    To  be  with  him  was  to  be  merry. 

Date.  —  The  play  was  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register,  and  a 
quarto  was  printed  in  1598.  Meres  mentions  the  play  without 
indicating  whether  he  meant  one  part  or  both.  The  evidence 
of  meter  and  style  point  to  a  date  much  earlier  than  Meres's 
entry,  so  that  1597  is  the  year  to  which  Part  I  is  commonly 


Source. — For  the  serious  plot  of  this  play,  Shakespeare  drew 
upon  Holinshed.  He  had  no  scruples,  however,  against  altering 
history  for  dramatic  purposes.  Thus  he  brings  within  a  much 
shorter  period  of  time  the  battles  in  Wales  and  Scotland,  makes 
Hal  and  Hotspur  of  approximately  the  same  age,  and  unites  two 
people  in  the  character  of  Mortimer.  The  situations  in  the 
scenes  which  show  Hal  with  Falstaff  and  his  fellows  are  largely 
borrowed  from  an  old  play  called  The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry 
F,  but  this  source  furnished  only  the  barest  and  crudest  outlines, 
and  gave  practically  no  hint  of  the  characters  as  Shakespeare 
conceived  them.  The  reference  in  Act  I,  Sc.  ii,  to  Falstaff  as 
the  '  old  lad  of  the  castle '  shows  that  his  name  was  originally 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     157 

Oldcastle,  as  in  The  Famous  Victories.  Oldcastle  was  a  historical 
personage  quite  unlike  Falstaff ,  and  it  is  supposed  that  the  change 
was  made  to  spare  the  feeling  of  Oldcastle's  descendants. 

Henry  IV,  Part  II.  —  This  part  is  less  a  play  than  a 
RftrJQ^fjnnsftly  p.f>npp.p.tPif|  ^o.ptip.s.  The  final  suppression 
of  the^^rebellion^ which  had  been  continued  by  the  Arch- 
^ishop  of  York,  the  sickness  and  death  of.jHenry  IV, 
and  the  accession  of  Prince  Hal  as  Henry  V,  are  matters 
essentially  undramatic  and  incapable  of  unified  treat- 
ment, while  the  growing  separation  of  Hal  and  Falstaff 
"deprived  the  underplot  pi  that  closft_  QQi^ppctinn  with 
the  main  action  which  it  had  in  the  preceding  play. 
Feeling  the  weakness  of  the  main  plot,  Shakespeare 
reduced  it  to  a  subordinate  position,  making  it  little 
more  than  a  series  of  historical  pictures  inserted  be- 
tween the  scenes  in  which  Falstaff  and  his  companions 
figure.  He  enriched  this  part  of  the  play,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  the  introduction  of  a  number  gf  superbly 
poetical  speechesj^^  the  best  known  of  which  is  that  be- 

^  ginning,  *'  0  Sleep,  0  gentle  Sleep^!!,  To  thecomic 
groups  Shalgfispeare  added  a  number  of  new  figures, 
among  them  the  braggart  Pistol,  whose  speech  bristles 
^th  the  high-sounding  terms  he  has  borrowed  from 

vohe  theater,  and  old  Justice  Shallow,  so  fgn^,  of  rpcflU- 

ing  the  gay  nights  and  days  which  are  as  much  figments 

of  Ins  imagination  as  is  his  assumed  familiarity  with 

the  great  John  of  Gaunt.     By  placing  more  stress  upon 

J^e  evil  and  less  pleasing  sides  oT  .b'alslaff^s  nature, 

*^SHaFespeare  evidently  intended  to  prepare  his  readers' 
minds  for  the  deiinite  tjreak  between  old  Jack  and  the 
new^mg;  but  in  this  wonderful  man  he  had  created  a 
character  so  fascinating  that  he  could  not  spoil  it;  and 


158    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

the  king's  public  rejection  of  Falstaff  comes  as  a  pain- 
ful shock  which  impresses  one  as  much  with  the  coldly 
calculating  side  of  the  Bolingbroke  nature  as  it  does 
with  the  sad  inevitability  of  the  rupture. 

Source  and  Date.  —  The  sources  for  this  play  are  the  same  as 
those  of  its  predecessor.  Although  the  first  and  only  quarto 
was  not  printed  until  1600,  there  is  a  reference  to  this  part  in 
Jonson's  Every  Man  Out  of  his  Humour,  which  was  produced 
in  1599.  It  must,  therefore,  have  been  written  shortly  after 
Part  I,  and  it  is  accordingly  dated  1598. 

Henry  V. — In  this,  which  is  really  the  third  play  of 
a  trilogy,  Shakespeare  adopted  a  manner  of  treatment 
quite  unlike  that  which  characterizes  the  other  two. 
Henry  V  is  really  a  dramatized  f  nic.  an  almost  Ivric 
rhapsody  cast  in  the  form  of  dialogue.  Falstaff  has 
disappeared  from  view,  and  is  recalled  only  by  the 
affectingstory  of  his  death.  This  episode,  however, 
brief  as  it  is,  reveals  the  love  which  the  old  knight 
evoked  from  his  companions,  while  the  narrative  of 
his  last  hours  is  the  more  pathetic  for  being  put  in  the 
mouth  of  the  comic  figure  of  Dame  Quickly.  Falstaff's 
place  was  one  which  could  not  be  filled,  and  the  comic 

^scenes  become  comparatively  insignificant,  although 
the  quarrels  of  Pistol  and  the  Welshman  Fluellen  have 
|t,distinctive  humor.  A  figure  which  replaces  the  classic 
chorus  connects  the  scattered  historical  scenes  by  means 
of^superb  narrative  verse.      Each  episode  glorifies  a 

^nejv  aspect  of  Henry's  chara.cter.  We  see  him  as  the 
Valiant  soldier;  as  the  leader  rising  sT,^p^^ior  to  tic- 
iheq^ous  odds;  as  the  democratic  king  who,  concealing 
his  rank,  talks  and  jests  with  a  common  soldier;   and 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     159 

as  the  bluffj^hearty  suitor  of  a  foreign  bride.  In  thus 
ieeing  him,  moreover,  we  see  not  only  the  individual 
/man ;  we  see  him  as  an  ideal  Englishman,  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  the  type  which  the  men  of  Shakespeare's 
day  —  and  of  ours,  too,  for  that  matter  —  loved  and 
admired  and  honored.  In  celebrating  Henry's  victories, 
Shakespeare  was  also  celebrating  England's  more  recent 
victories  over  her  enemies  abroad,  so  that  the  play  is  a 
great  national  paean,  the  song  of  heroic^  ttiujayjthaBt 
England. 

Date  and  Source. — Like  its  predecessors,  Henry  Fis  founded 
on  Holinshed,  with  some  additions  taken  from  the  Famous  Vic- 
tories. The  allusion  in  the  chorus  which  precedes  Act  V  to 
the  Irish  expedition  of  the  Earl  of  Essex  fixes  the  date  of  com- 
position between  April  14  and  September  28,  1599.  A  quarto, 
almost  certainly  pirated,  was  printed  in  1600  and  reprinted  in 
1602,  1608,  and  1619  (in  the  latter  with  the  false  date  of  1608). 
The  text  of  these  quartos  is,  therefore,  much  inferior  to  that  of 
the  Folio. 

The  Merchant  of  Venice.  — As  usually  presented  on  the 
modern  stage.  The  Merchant  of  Venice  appears  to  be  a 
comedy,  which  is  overshadowed  by  one  tragic  figure, 
that  of  the  Jew  Shylock,  the  representative  of  a  down- 
trodden people,  deprived  of  his  money  by  a  tricky 
lawyer  and  deprived  of  his  daughter  by  a  tricky  Chris- 
tian. Students,  on  the  other  hand,  have  maintained 
that  to  the  Elizabethans  Shylock  was  merely  a  comic 
figure,  the  defeat  of  whose  vile  plot  to  get  the  life  of 
his  Christian  debtor,  Antonio,  by  taking  a  pound  of  his 
flesh  in  place  of  the  unpaid  gold,  was  greeted  with 
shouts  of  delighted  laughter.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Shylock,  then  as  now,  was  a  human  being,  and  by  virtue 


160    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

of  that  fact  both  ridiculous  and  pathetic.  In  any  case, 
whatever  the  dominant  note  of  his  character,  he  is  not 
the  dominant  figure  of  the  play.  If  he  were,  the  fifth 
act,  which  ends  the  play  with  moonlight  and  music  and 
the  laughter  of  happy  lovers,  would  be  distinctly  out 
of  place.  Yet  it  is  in  reality  the  absence  of  such  de- 
fects of  taste,  the  ability  to  bring  everything  into  its 
proper  place,  to  make  a  harmonious  whole  out  of  the 
most  various  tones,  which  best  characterizes  the  Shake- 
spearean comedy  of  this  period.  Instead  of  being  a 
play  in  which  one  great  character  is  set  in  relief  against 
a  number  of  lesser  ones,  The  Merchant  of  Venice  is  a 
comedy  in  which  there  is  an  unusually  large  number 
of  characters  of  nearly  equal  importance  and  an  un- 
usually large  number  of  plots  of  nearly  equal  interest. 
There  is  the  plot  which  has  to  do  with  Portia's  mar- 
riage, in  which  the  right  lover  wins  this  gracious  merry 
lady  by  choosing  the  proper  one  of  three  locked  caskets. 
There  is  the  plot  which  deals  with  the  elopement  of 
the  Jew's  daughter,  Jessica.  There  is  the  plot  which 
relates  the  story  of  the  bond  given  by  Antonio  to  the 
Jew  in  return  for  the  loan  which  enables  Antonio's 
friend,  Bassanio,  to  carry  on  his  suit  for  Portia's  hand, 
the  bond,  which,  when  forfeited,  would  have  cost  An- 
tonio his  life  had  not  Portia,  disguised  as  a  lawyer, 
defeated  Shylock's  treacherous  design.  There  is  the 
plot  which  tells  how  Bassanio  and  his  friend  Gratiano 
give  their  wedding  rings  as  rewards  to  the  pretended 
lawyer  and  his  assistant,  really  their  wives  Portia  and 
Nerissa  in  disguise,  —  an  act  which  gives  the  wives  a 
chance  to  make  much  trouble  for  their  lords.  And  all 
these  plots  are  worked  out  with  an  abundance  of  interest- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     161 

ing  detail,  and  are  so  perfectly  interwoven  that  the  play 
has  all  of  the  wonderful  harmony  of  a  Turkish  rug,  as 
well  as  its  brilliant  variety.  No  play  of  Shakespeare's 
depends  more  for  its  effect  on  plot,  on  the  sheer  interest 
of  the  stories,  and  no  one  has,  consequently,  situations 
which  are  more  effective  on  the  stage.  It  is,  perhaps, 
an  inevitable  result  that  the  individual  characters  have 
a  somewhat  less  permanent,  less  deeply  satisfying  charm 
than  do  those  of  the  comedies  which  follow.  None  of 
these  successors,  however,  presents  a  larger  or  more 
varied  group  of  delightful  men  and  women. 

Date.  —  The  later  limit  of  the  date  is  settled  by  the  mention 
of  this  play  in  Meres' s  catalogue,  and  by  its  entry  in  the  Sta- 
tioners' Register  of  that  same  year.  Basing  their  opinion  on  ex- 
tremely unsubstantial  internal  evidence,  some  scholars  have  dated 
the  play  as  early  as  1594,  but  the  evidence  of  style  and  construc- 
tion make  a  date  before  1596  unlikely.  Two  quartos  were 
printed,  one  in  1600 ;  the  other,  though  copying  the  date  1600 
upon  its  title-page,  was  probably  printed  in  1619. 

Source.  —  The  story  of  the  pound  of  flesh  and  that  of  the 
choice  of  caskets  are  extremely  ancient.  The  former  is  com- 
bined with  that  of  the  wedding  rings  in  Fiorentino's  II  Pecorone 
(the  first  novel  of  the  fourth  day) ,  a  story  which  Shakespeare 
probably  knew  and  may  have  used.  Alexander  Silvajrn's  The 
Orator,  printed  in  English  translation  in  1596,  has,  in  connection 
with  a  bond  episode,  speeches  made  by  a  Jew  which  may  be 
the  source  of  some  of  Shylock's  lines.  The  combination  of 
these  plots  with  those  of  Jessica  and  Nerissa  is,  so  far  as  we  can 
yet  prove,  original  with  Shakespeare ;  but  we  cannot  be  certain 
how  much  The  Merchant  of  Venice  resembles  a  lost  play  of  the 
Jew  mentioned  in  Gosson's  School  of  Abuse  (1579),  "  represent- 
ing the  greediness  of  worldly  chusers,  and  bloody  mindes  of 
Usurers." 

The  Taming  of  the  Shrew.  —  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
is  only  in  part  the  work  of  Shakespeare.     Just  how 

M 


162    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

much  he  had  to  do  with  making  over  the  underplot,  we 
shall  probably  never  know ;  but,  in  any  case,  he  did 
not  write  the  dialogue  of  this  part  of  the  play,  and  its 
construction  is  not  particularly  remarkable.  The  win- 
ning of  a  girl  by  a  suitor  disguised  as  a  teacher  is  a 
conventional  theme  of  comedy,  as  is  the  disguising  of  a 
stranger  to  take  the  place  of  an  absent  father  in  order 
to  confirm  a  young  lover's  suit.  The  main  plot  Shake- 
speare certainly  left  as  he  found  it.  It  tells  how  an 
ungovernable,  willful  girl  was  made  into  a  submissive 
wife  by  a  husband  who  assumed  for  the  purpose  a  man- 
ner even  wilder  than  her  own,  so  wild  that  not  even  she 
could  endure  it.  This  story  is  presented  in  scenes  of 
uproarious  farce  in  which  there  is  little  opportunity  for 
subtle  characterization  or  the  higher  sort  of  comedy. 
What  Shakespeare  did  was  to  give  to  the  hero  and 
heroine,  Petruchio  and  Katherine,  a  semblance  of  reality, 
and  to  add  enormously  to  the  life  and  movement  of  the 
scenes  in  which  they  appear.  Some  of  these  scenes 
are  very  effective  on  the  stage,  but  they  are  not  of  a 
sort  to  reveal  Shakespeare's  greatest  qualities.  The 
induction,  the  framework  in  which  the  play  is  set,  is, 
however,  quite  another  matter.  The  story  of  the 
drunken  tinker,  Sly,  unfortunately  omitted  in  many 
modern  presentations,  is  a  little  masterpiece.  A 
nobleman  returning  from  the  hunt  finds  Sly  lying  in  a 
drunken  stupor  before  an  inn.  The  nobleman  has  Sly 
taken  to  his  country  house,  has  him  dressed  in  rich 
clothing,  has  him  awakened  by  servants  who  make  him 
believe  that  he  is  really  a  lord,  and  finally  has  the  play 
performed  before  him.  The  outline  of  this  induction 
was  in  the  old  play  which  Shakespeare  revised ;  but 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     163 

he  developed  the  crude  work  of  his  predecessor  into 
scenes  so  delightfully  realistic,  into  characterization  so 
richly  humorous,  that  this  induction  takes  its  place 
among  the  great  comic  episodes  of  literature. 

Date.  —  No  certain  evidence  for  the  date  of  this  play  exists, 
even  the  metrical  tests  failing  us  because  of  the  collaboration. 
It  is  commonly  assigned  to  the  years  1596-7,  but  this  is  little 
more  than  a  guess. 

Source.  —  As  has  already  been  indicated,  this  play  is  the  re- 
vision of  an  older  play  entitled  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew.  The 
latter  was  probably  written  by  a  disciple  of  Marlowe,  and  was 
first  printed  in  quarto  in  1594.  The  chief  change  which  the  re- 
vision made  in  the  plot  was  that  which  gave  Katherine  one  sister 
instead  of  two  and  added  the  interest  of  rival  suitors  for  this 
sister's  hand.  Stories  concerning  the  taming  of  a  shrewish 
woman  are  both  ancient  and  common,  but  no  direct  antecedent 
of  the  older  play  has  been  discovered,  although  some  incidents 
seem  to  have  been  borrowed  from  Gascoigne's  Supposes^  a  trans- 
lation from  the  Italian  of  Ariosto. 

Authorship.  —  The  identity  of  Shakespeare's  collaborator  is 
unknown,  nor  is  it  possible  to  define  exactly  the  limits  of  his 
work.  It  is  practically  certain,  however,  that  Shakespeare 
wrote  the  Induction  ;  II,  i,  169-326  ;  III,  ii,  with  the  possible 
exception  of  130-150 ;  IV,  i,  iii,  and  v ;  V,  ii,  at  least  as  far  as 
175. 

The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  —  The  Merry  Wives  is 
the  only  comedy  in  which  Shakespeare  avowedly  pre- 
sents the  middle-class  people  of  an  English  town.  In 
other  comedies  English  characters  and  customs  appear 
through  the  thin  disguise  of  Italian  names ;  in  the 
histories  there  are  comic  scenes  drawn  from  English 
life ;  but  only  here  does  Shakespeare  desert  the  city 
and  the  country  for  the  small  town  and  draw  the  larger 
number  of  his  characters  from  the  great  middle  class. 


164    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

A  tradition  has  come  down  to  ns,  one  which  is  supported 
by  the  nature  of  the  play,  that  Queen  Elizabeth  was  so 
fascinated  by  the  character  of  Falstaff  as  he  appeared 
in  Henry  IV  that  she  requested  Shakespeare  to  show 
Falstaff  in  love,  and  that  Shakespeare,  in  obedience  to 
this  command,  wrote  the  play  within  a  fortnight. 
Unless  this  tradition  be  true,  it  is  difficult  to  explain 
why  Shakespeare  should  have  written  a  comedy  which 
is,  in  comparison  with  his  other  work  of  this  period, 
at  once  conventional  and  mediocre.  The  subject  —  the 
intrigues  of  Falstaff  with  two  married  women,  and  the 
wooing  of  a  commonplace  girl  by  two  foolish  suitors 
and  another  as  commonplace  as  herself  —  gave  Shake- 
speare little  opportunity  for  poetry  and  none  for  the 
portrayal  of  the  types  of  character  most  congenial  to 
his  temperament.  The  greatest  blemish  on  the  play, 
however,  from  the  standpoint  of  a  student  of  Shake- 
speare, is  that  the  man  called  Falstaff  is  not  Falstaff 
at  all,  that  this  Falstaff  bears  only  an  outward  resem- 
blance to  the  Falstaff  of  the  historical  plays.  If  we 
may  misquote  the  poet,  Falstaff  died  a  martyr,  and 
this  is  not  the  man.  The  real  Falstaff  would  never 
have  stooped  to  the  weak  devices  adopted  by  the  man 
who  bears  his  name,  would  never  have  been  three  times 
the  dupe  of  transparent  tricks.  The  task  demanded 
of  Shakespeare  was  one  impossible  of  performance. 
Falstaff  could  not  have  fallen  in  love  in  the  way  which 
the  queen  desired.  Nor  is  there  much  to  compensate 
for  this  degradation  of  the  greatest  comic  figure  in 
literature.  Falstaff' s  companions  share,  although  to  a 
lesser  degree,  in  their  leader's  fall,  while  the  two  comic 
figures  which  are  original  with  this  play  are  compara- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     165 

tively  unsuccessful  studies  in  French  and  Welsh 
dialect.  Judged  by  Shakespeare's  own  standard,  this 
work  is  as  middle-class  as  its  characters ;  judged  by 
any  other,  it  is  an  amusing  comedy  of  intrigue,  real- 
istic in  type  and  abounding  in  comic  situations  which 
approach  the  borderland  of  farce. 

Date.  —  This  play  was  entered  on  the  books  of  the  Stationers' 
Company  January  18,  1602.  It  was  certainly  written  after  the 
two  parts  of  Henry  IV,  and  if,  as  is  most  probable,  the  character 
of  Nym  is  a  revival  and  not  an  imperfect  first  sketch,  the  play 
must  have  succeeded  Henry  V.  On  these  grounds  the  play  is 
best  assigned  to  1599.  It  was  first  printed  in  quarto  in  1602, 
but  this  version  is  extremely  faulty,  besides  being  considerably 
shorter  than  that  of  the  First  Folio.  The  quarto  seems  to 
have  been  printed  from  a  stenographic  report  of  an  acting  ver- 
sion of  the  play,  made  by  an  unskillful  reporter  for  a  piratical 
publisher. 

Source.  —  The  main  plot  resembles  a  story  derived  from  an 
Italian  source  which  is  found  in  Tarlton'siVews  out  of  Purgatorie. 
For  the  underplot  and  a  number  of  details  in  the  working  out 
of  the  main  plot,  no  source  is  known. 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing.  —  In  this  play,  as  nowhere 
else,  Shakespeare  has  given  us  the  boon  of  laughter  — 
not  the  smile,  not  the  uncontrolled  guffaw,  but  rip- 
pling, melodious  laughter.  From  the  beginning  to  the 
end  this  is  the  dominant  note.  If  the  great  trio  of 
which  this  was  the  first  be  classified  as  romantic 
comedies,  we  may  perhaps  say  that  in  speaking  of  the 
others  we  should  lay  the  stress  on  the  word  '  romantic,' 
in  this,  on  the  word  '  comedy.'  As  regards  the  main 
plot,  Miich  Ado  is,  to  be  sure,  the  most  serious  of  the 
three.  When  the  machinations  of  the  villainous  Prince 
John  lead  Claudio  to  believe  his  intended  bride  un- 


166    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

faithful,  and  to  reject  this  pure-souled  Hero  with 
violence  and  contumely  at  the  very  steps  of  the  altar, 
we  have  a  situation  which  borders  on  the  tragic.  The 
mingled  doubt,  rage,  and  despair  of  Hero's  father  is, 
moreover,  undoubtedly  affecting.  Nevertheless,  power- 
ful as  these  scenes  are,  they  are  so  girt  about  with 
laughter  that  they  cannot  destroy  our  good  spirits. 
Even  at  their  height,  the  manifestations  of  human 
wickedness,  credulity,  and  weakness  seem  but  the  il- 
lusions of  a  moment,  soon  to  be  dissipated  by  the 
power  of  radiant  mirth.  It  is  not  without  significance 
that  the  deep-laid  plot  should  be  defeated  through  the 
agency  of  the  immortal  Dogberry,  most  deliciously 
foolish  of  constables.  Nor  is  it  mere  chance  that 
Hero  and  Claudio  are  so  constantly  accompanied  by 
Beatrice  and  Benedick,  that  amazing  pair  to  whom 
life  is  one  long  jest.  In  the  merry  war  which  is  con- 
stantly raging  between  these  two,  their  shafts  never 
fail  of  their  mark,  but  neither  is  once  wounded.  Like 
magnesium  lights,  their  minds  send  forth  showers  of 
brilliant  sparks  which  hit,  but  do  not  wound.  But 
their  wit  is  something  more  than  empty  sparkle.  It 
is  the  effervescence  of  abounding  life,  a  life  too  sound 
and  perfect  to  be  devoid  of  feeling.  Their  brilliancy 
does  not  conceal  emptiness,  but  adorns  abundance. 
When  such  an  occasion  as  Hero's  undeserved  rejection 
called  for  it,  the  true  affection  of  Beatrice  and  the  true 
manliness  of  Benedick  appeared.  Hence,  although  both 
seem  duped  by  the  trick  which  forms  the  underplot, 
the  ruse  which  was  to  make  each  think  the  other  to 
be  the  lovelorn  one,  it  is  really  they  who  win  the  day. 
Their  feelings  are  not  altered  by  this  merry  plot ;  they 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     167 

are  merely  given  a  chance  to  drop  the  mask  of  banter 
and  to  express  without  confusion  the  love  which  had 
long  been  theirs.  Thus  the  play  which  began  with 
the  silvery  laughter  of  Beatrice  ends  in  general  mirth 
which  is  yet  more  joyous. 

Date.  —  Since  Much  Ado  is  not  mentioned  by  Meres,  it  can 
hardly  have  been  written  before  1598.  Entries  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  for  August  4  and  24,  1600,  and  the  appearance  of  a 
quarto  edition  in  this  same  year  limit  the  possibilities  at  the 
other  end.  Since  the  title-page  of  the  quarto  asserts  that  this 
play  had  been  "sundry  times  publicly  acted,"  we  may  assign 
the  date  1599  with  considerable  confidence. 

Source. — The  main  plot  was  derived  originally  from  the 
twentieth  novel  of  Bandello,  but  there  is  no  direct  evidence 
that  Shakespeare  used  either  this  or  its  French  translation  in 
Belleforest.  In  this  story  Benedick  and  Beatrice  do  not  appear ; 
there  is  no  public  rejection  of  Hero  ;  there  is  no  discovery 
of  the  plot  by  Dogberry  and  his  fellows ;  and  the  deception 
of  Claudio  is  differently  managed.  Shakespeare's  treatment  of 
this  last  detail  has  its  source  in  an  episode  of  the  fifth  book  of 
Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso,  a  work  several  times  done  into 
English  before  Shakespeare's  play  was  written.  There  is  con- 
siderable reason  for  assuming  the  existence  of  a  lost  original  for 
Much  Ado  in  the  shape  of  a  play,  known  only  by  title,  called 
Benedicke  and  Betteris;  but  it  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  say 
how  much  Shakespeare  may  have  owed  to  this  hypothetical 
predecessor. 

As  You  Like  It.  —  Of  this  most  idyllic  of  all  Shake- 
speare^s  comedies,  the  Forest  of  Arden  is  not  merely 
the  setting;  it  is  the  central  force  of  the  play,  the 
power  which  brings  laughter  out  of  tears  and  harmony 
out  of  discord.  It  reminds  us  of  Sherwood  forest,  the 
home  of  Robin  Hood  and  his  merry  men;  but  it  is 
more  than  this.  Not  only  does  it  harbor  beasts  and 
trees  never  found  on  English  soil,  but  its  shadowy 


168    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

glades  foster  a  life  so  free  from  care  and  trouble  that 
it  becomes  to  us  a  symbol  of  Nature's  healing,  sweet- 
ening influence.  Here  an  exiled  Duke  and  his  faith- 
ful followers  have  found  a  refuge  where,  free  from  the 
envy  and  bickerings  of  court,  they  "  fleet  the  time 
carelessly,  as  they  did  in  the  Golden  Age."  To  them 
comes  the  youth  Orlando,  fleeing  from  the  treachery 
of  a  wicked  elder  brother  and  from  the  malice  of  the 
usurping  Duke.  To  them  comes  Rosalind,  daughter 
of  the  exiled  Duke,  who  has  lived  at  the  usurper's 
court,  but  has,  in  her  turn,  been  exiled,  and  who  brings 
with  her  Celia,  the  usurper's  daughter,  and  Touchstone, 
the  lovable  court  fool.  And  through  these  newcomers 
the  Duke  and  his  friends  are  brought  into  contact  with 
a  shepherd  and  shepherdess  as  unreal  and  as  charming 
as  those  of  Dresden  china,  and  with  other  country- 
folk who  smack  more  strongly  of  the  soil.  In  the 
forest,  Rosalind,  who  has  for  safety's  sake  assumed 
man's  attire,  again  meets  Orlando,  and  the  love  between 
them,  born  of  their  first  meeting  at  court,  becomes 
stronger  and  truer  amid  scenes  of  delicate  comedy 
and  merry  laughter.  Once  in  Arden,  Orlando  ceases 
to  brood  morosely  over  the  wrongs  done  him ;  Rosa- 
lind's wit  becomes  sweeter  while  losing  none  of  its 
keenness;  and  Touchstone  feels  himself  no  longer  a 
plajrthing,  but  a  man.  So  we  are  not  surprised  when 
Oliver,  the  wicked  brother,  lost  in  the  forest  and 
rescued  from  mortal  danger  by  the  lad  he  has  always 
sought  to  injure,  awakens  to  his  better  self ;  nor  when 
the  usurping  Duke,  leading  an  armed  expedition 
against  the  man  he  has  deposed,  is  converted  at  the 
forest's  edge  by  an  old  hermit,  abandons  the  throne  to 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     169 

its  rightful  occupant,  and  enters  upon  the  religious  life. 
Thus  the  old  Duke  comes  into  his  own  again,  wiser 
and  better  than  before;  and  if,  among  the  many- 
marriages  which  fill  the  last  act  with  the  chiming  of 
marriage  bells,  there  are  some  which  seem  little  likely 
to  bring  lasting  happiness,  the  magic  of  the  woods 
does  much  to  dissipate  our  doubts.  Only  Jaques,  the 
melancholy  philosopher,  fails  to  share  in  the  general 
rejoicing  and  the  glad  return.  He  has  been  too  hard- 
ened by  the  pursuit  of  his  own  pleasure  and  is  too  shut 
in  by  his  delightfully  cynical  philosophy  to  feel  quickly 
the  forest's  touch.  Yet  not  even  his  brilliant  perver- 
sities can  sadden  the  joyous  atmosphere;  it  is  only 
made  the  more  enjoyable  by  force  of  contrast.  Since 
Jaques  wishes  no  joy  for  himself,  we  wish  none  for 
him,  and  with  little  regret  we  leave  him  as  he  has 
lived,  a  lonely,  fascinating  figure. 

Date.  —  Like  Much  Ado^  As  You  Like  It  is  not  mentioned 
by  Meres,  and  was  entered  in  the  Stationers'  Register  on 
August  4,  1600.  Some  critics  have  placed  this  play  before 
Much  Ado,  but,  although  there  is  little  evidence  on  either  side, 
the  style  and  tone  of  the  play  incline  us  to  place  it  after,  dating 
it  1599-1600. 

Source.  —  As  You  Like  It  is  a  dramatization  of  Lodge's 
pastoral  novel  entitled  Bosalynde,  which  was  founded  in  its 
turn  on  the  Tale  of  Gamelyn,  incorrectly  ascribed  to  Chaucer. 
Shakespeare  condensed  his  original  to  great  advantage,  leaving 
out  many  episodes  and  so  changing  others  as  to  give  the  subject 
a  new  and  higher  unity.  The  atmosphere  of  the  forest  is  all 
of  his  creation,  as  are  many  of  the  characters,  including  Jaques 
and  Touchstone. 

Twelfth  Night,  or  What  You  Will.  —In  Twelfth  Night 
romance  and  comedy  are  less  perfectly  fused  than  in 


170    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

the  comedy  which  preceded  it.  Here  there  are  two 
distinct  groups  of  characters,  on  the  one  hand  riotous 
old  Sir  Toby  and  his  crew  leading  the  Puritanical 
steward  Malvolio  into  the  trap  baited  by  his  own 
egotism;  on  the  other,  the  dreaming  Duke,  in  love 
with  love  rather  than  with  the  beautiful  Olivia  whom 
he  woos  in  vain,  and  ardently  loved  by  Viola,  whose 
gentle  nature  is  in  touching  contrast  with  the  doublet 
and  hose  which  misfortune  has  compelled  her  to 
assume.  There  is,  however,  no  lack  of  dramatic 
unity.  In  Olivia  the  two  groups  meet,  for  Toby  is 
Olivia^s  uncle,  Malvolio  her  steward,  the  Duke  her 
lover,  Viola — later  happily  supplanted  by  her  twin 
brother  Sebastian  —  the  one  she  loves.  Thus  the 
romantic  and  comic  forces  act  and  react  upon  each 
other.  Yet  this  play,  by  reason  of  its  setting,  the 
court  of  Illyria,  was  bound  to  lack  the  magical  atmos- 
phere of  the  forest,  which  inspired  kindly  humor  in 
the  serious  and  gentle  seriousness  in  the  merry.  If 
Feste  is  as  witty  as  Touchstone,  he  is  less  of  a  man  ; 
if  Viola  is  more  appealing  than  Rosalind,  she  has  a 
less  sparkling  humor.  Here  the  love  story  is  more 
passionate,  the  fun  more  uproarious.  Toby  is  not 
Falstaff;  he  is  overcome  by  wine  and  difficulties  as 
that  amazing  knight  never  was ;  but  it  is  a  sad  soul 
which  does  not  roar  with  Toby  in  his  revels ;  shout 
with  laughter  over  the  duel  which  he  arranges  be- 
tween the  shrinking  Viola  and  the  foolish,  vain  Sir 
Andrew ;  and  shake  in  sympathy  with  his  glee  over 
Malvolio's  plight  when  that  unlucky  man  is  beguiled 
into  thinking  Olivia  loves  him,  and  into  appearing 
before  her  cross-gartered  and  wreathed  in  the  smiles 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  SECOND  PERIOD     171 

which  accord  so  ill  with  his  sour  visage.  All  the  more 
affecting  in  contrast  to  this  boisterous  merriment  is 
the  frail  figure  of  Viola,  who  knows  so  well  "what 
love  women  to  men  may  owe."  Amid  the  perfume  of 
flowers  and  the  sob  of  violins  the  Duke  learns  to  love 
this  seeming  boy  better  than  he  knows,  and  easily 
forgets  the  romantic  melancholy  which  was  never 
much  more  than  an  agreeable  pose. 

Date.  —  In  the  diary  of  John  Manningham  for  February  2, 
1602,  is  a  record  of  a  performance  of  Twelfth  Night  in  the  Middle 
Temple.  The  absence  of  the  name  from  Meres's  list  again  limits 
the  date  at  the  other  end.  The  internal  evidence,  aside  from 
that  of  style  and  meter,  is  negligible,  while  the  latter  confirms 
the  usually  accepted  date  of  1601. 

Source.  —  The  principal  source  of  the  plot  was  probably 
Apolonius  and  Silla,  a  story  by  Barnabe  Riche,  apparently  an 
adaptation  of  Belief  crest's  translation  of  the  twenty-eighth  novel 
of  Bandello.  There  was  also  an  Italian  play,  GV  Ingannati, 
acted  in  Latin  translation  at  Cambridge  in  1590  and  1598,  which 
has  a  similar  plot.  A  German  play  on  the  same  subject, 
apparently  closely  connected  with  Riche,  has  given  rise  to  the 
hypothesis  that  a  lost  English  play  preceded  Twelfth  Night; 
but  this  is  only  conjectural,  and  there  is  some  evidence  that 
Shakespeare  was  familiar  with  Riche's  story.  If  this  be  the 
original,  Shakespeare  improved  on  it  as  much  as  he  did  on 
Bosalynde,  condensing  the  beginning,  knitting  together  the 
loose  strands  at  the  end,  and  introducing  the  whole  of  the 
underplot  with  its  rich  variety  of  characters.  The  only  hint  for 
this  known  is  a  slight  suggestion  for  Malvolio's  madness  found 
in  another  story  of  Riche's  volume. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIED  PERIOD  —  TRAGEDY 

The  Second  and  Third  periods  slightly  overlap; 
for  Julius  Ccesar,  the  first  play  of  the  later  group,  was 
probably  written  before  Twelfth  Night  and  As  Tou 
Like  It,  But  the  change  in  the  character  of  the  plays 
in  these  two  periods  is  sharp  and  decisive,  like  the 
change  from  day  to  night.  Shakespeare  has  studied 
the  sunlight  of  human  cheerfulness  and  found  it  a 
most  interesting  problem  ;  now  in  the  mysterious  star- 
light and  shadow  of  human  suffering  he  finds  a  prob- 
lem more  interesting  still. 

The  three  comedies  of  this  period,  partly  on  account 
of  their  bitter  and  sarcastic  tone,  are  not  widely  read 
nor  usually  very  much  admired ;  but  the  great  trage- 
dies are  the  poet's  finest  work  and  scarcely  equaled  in 
the  history  of  the  world. 

Troilus  and  Cressida.  —  Here  the  story  centers  around 
the  siege  of  ancient  Troy  by  the  Greeks.  Its  hero, 
Troilus,  is  a  young  son  of  Priam,  high-spirited  and  en- 
thusiastic, who  is  in  love  with  Cressida,  daughter  of  a 
Trojan  priest.  Pandarus,  Cressida's  uncle,  acts  as  go- 
between  for  the  lovers.  Just  as  the  suit  of  Troilus  is 
crowned  with  success,  Cressida,  from  motives  of  pol- 
icy, is  forced  to  join  her  father  Calchas,  who  is  in  the 
camp  of  the  besieging  Greeks.  Here  her  fickle  and 
sensuous  nature  reveals  itself  rapidly.     She  yields  to 

172 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      173 

the  love  of  the  Greek  commander  Diomed  and  promises 
to  become  his  mistress.  Troihis  learns  of  this,  con- 
signs her  to  oblivion,  and  attempts,  but  unsuccessfully, 
to  take  revenge  on  Diomed. 

While  this  love  story  is  progressing,  meetings  are 
going  on  between  the  Greek  and  Trojan  warriors ;  a 
vivid  picture  is  given  of  conditions  in  the  Greek  camp 
during  the  truce,  and  particularly  of  the  insolent  pride 
of  Achilles.  The  story  ends  with  the  resumption  of 
hostilities,  the  slaying  of  Hector  by  Achilles,  and  the 
resolution  of  Troilus  to  revenge  his  brother's  death. 

It  is  very  difficult  to  understand  what  Shakespeare 
meant  by  this  play.  If  it  is  a  tragedy,  why  do  the 
hero  and  heroine  meet  with  no  special  disaster  at 
the  end,  and  why  do  we  feel  so  little  sympathy  for  the 
misfortunes  of  any  one  in  the  play  ?  If  it  is  a  comedy, 
why  is  its  sarcastic  mirth  made  more  bitter  than  tears, 
and  why  does  it  end  with  the  death  of  its  noblest 
minor  character  and  with  the  violation  of  all  poetic 
justice  ?  From  beginning  to  end  it  is  the  story  of  dis- 
illusion, for  it  sorts  all  humanity  into  two  great  classes, 
fools  who  are  cheated  and  knaves  who  cheat.  Some 
people  think  that  Shakespeare  wrote  it  in  a  gloomy, 
pessimistic  mood,  with  the  sardonic  laughter  of  a  dis- 
appointed, world-wearied  man.  Others,  on  rather 
doubtful  grounds,  believe  it  a  covert  satire  on  some  of 
Shakespeare's  fellow  dramatists. 

Authorship.  — It  is  generally  agreed  that  a  small  part  of  this 
play  is  by  another  author.  The  Prologue  and  most  of  the  Fifth 
Act  are  usually  considered  non-Shakespearean.  They  differ 
from  the  rest  of  the  play  in  many  details  of  vocabulary,  meter, 
and  style. 


174    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Date.  —  Troilus  and  Cressida  must  have  been  written  before 
1603,  for  in  the  spring  of  that  year  an  entry  in  regard  to  it  was 
made  in  the  Stationers'  Register.  It  must  have  been  written 
after  1601,  for  it  alludes  (Prologue,  11.  23-25)  to  the  Prologue  of 
Jonson's  Poetaster,  a  play  published  in  that  year.  Hence  the 
date  of  composition  would  fall  during  or  slightly  before  1602. 
The  First  Quarto  was  not  published  until  1609. 

Sources.  —  The  main  source  of  this  drama  was  the  nar- 
rative poem  Troilus  and  Criseyde  by  Chaucer.  Contrary  to 
his  custom,  Shakespeare  has  degraded  the  characters  of  his  orig- 
inal, instead  of  ennobling  them.  The  camp  scenes  are  adapted 
from  Caxton's  Becuyell  of  the  Historyes  of  Troye ;  and  the 
challenge  of  Hector  was  taken  from  some  translation  of  Homer, 
probably  that  by  Chapman.  An  earlier  lost  play  on  this  subject 
by  Dekker  and  Chettle  is  mentioned  in  contemporary  reference. 
We  do  not  know  whether  Shakespeare  drew  anything  from  it 
or  not.  Scattered  hints  were  probably  taken  from  other 
sources,  as  the  story  of  Troy  was  very  popular  in  the  Middle 
Ages. 

All's  Well  That  Ends  Well.  —When  a  beautiful  and 
noble-minded  young  woman  falls  in  love  with  a  con- 
temptible scoundrel,  forgives  his  rebuffs,  compromises 
her  own  dignity  to  win  his  affection,  and  finally  per- 
suades him  to  let  her  throw  herself  away  on  him, — 
is  the  result  a  romance  or  a  tragedy  ?  This  is  a  nice 
question ;  and  by  the  answer  to  it  we  must  determine 
whether  AlVs  Well  That  Ends  Well  is  a  romantic 
comedy  like  Twelfth  Night  or  a  satirical  comedy  bitter 
as  tragedy,  like  Troilus  and  Cressida. 

Helena,  a  poor  orphan  girl,  has  been  brought  up  by 
the  kindly  old  Countess  of  Rousillon,  and  cherishes  a 
deep  affection  for  the  Countess's  son  Bertram,  though 
he  neither  suspects  it  nor  returns  it.  She  saves  the 
life  of  the  French  king,  and  he  in  gratitude  allows  her 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      175 

to  choose  her  husbaud  from  among  the  noblest  young 
lords  of  France.  Her  choice  falls  on  Bertram.  Being 
too  politic  to  offend  the  king,  he  reluctantly  marries 
her,  but  forsakes  her  on  their  wedding  day  to  go  to  the 
wars.  At  parting  he  tells  her  that  he  will  never  ac- 
cept her  as  a  wife  until  she  can  show  him  his  ring  on 
her  finger  and  has  a  child  by  him.  By  disguising  her- 
self as  a  young  woman  whom  Bertram  is  attempting 
to  seduce,  Helena  subsequently  fulfills  the  terms  of 
his  hard  condition.  Later,  before  the  king  of  France 
she  reminds  him  of  his  promise,  shows  his  ring  in  her 
possession,  and  states  that  she  is  with  child  by  him. 
The  count,  outwitted,  and  in  fear  of  the  king's  wrath, 
repentantly  accepts .  her  as  his  wife ;  and  at  the  end 
Helena  is  expected  to  live  happily  forever  after. 

Disagreeable  as  the  plot  is  when  told  in  outline,  it  is 
redeemed  in  the  actual  play  by  the  beautiful  character 
given  to  the  heroine.  But  this,  while  it  vastly  tones 
down  the  disgusting  side  of  the  story,  only  increases  the 
bitter  pathos  which  is  latent  there.  The  more  lovely 
and  admirable  Helena  is,  the  more  she  is  unfitted  for 
the  unworthy  part  which  she  is  forced  to  act  and  the 
man  with  whom  she  is  doomed  to  end  her  days.  A 
modern  thinker  could  easily  read  into  this  "  comedy  " 
the  world-old  bitterness  of  pearls  before  swine. 

Date.  —  No  quarto  of  this  comedy  exists,  nor  is  there  any 
mention  of  such  a  play  as  AlVs  Well  That  Ends  Well  before 
the  publication  of  the  First  FoUo  in  1623.  A  play  of  Shake- 
speare's called  Lovers  Lahour''s  Won  is  mentioned  by  Francis 
Meres  in  1598  ;  and  many  think  that  this  was  the  present 
comedy  under  another  name.  However,  the  meter,  style,  and 
mood  of  most  of  the  play  seem  to  indicate  a  later  date.     The 


176    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

most  common  theory  is  that  a  first  version  was  written  before 
1598,  and  that  this  was  rewritten  in  the  early  part  of  the  author's 
third  period.  This  would  put  the  date  of  the  play  in  its 
present  form  somewhere  around  1602. 

Sources.  —  The  story  is  taken  from  Boccaccio's  Decameron 
(ninth  novel  of  the  third  day).  It  was  translated  into  Eng- 
lish by  Painter  in  his  Palace  of  Pleasure,  where  our  author 
probably  read  it.  Shakespeare  has  added  the  Countess,  Pa- 
rolles,  and  one  or  two  minor  characters.  The  conception  of  the 
heroine  has  been  greatly  ennobled.  It  is  a  question  whether 
the  bitter  tone  of  the  play  is  due  to  the  dramatist's  intention  or 
is  the  unforeseen  result  of  reducing  Boccaccio's  improbable 
story  to  a  living  possibility. 

Measure  for  Measure.  —  When  Hamlet  told  his  guilty 
mother  that  he  would  set  her  up  a  glass  where  she 
might  see  the  inmost  part  of  her,  he  was  doing  for  his 
mother  what  Shakespeare  in  Measure  for  Measure  is 
doing  for  the  lust-spotted  world.  The  play  is  a 
trenchant  satire  on  the  evils  of  society.  Such  realis- 
tic pictures  of  the  things  that  are,  but  should  not  be, 
have  always  jarred  on  our  aesthetic  sense  from  Aris- 
tophanes to  Zola,  and  Measure  for  Measure  is  one  of 
the  most  disagreeable  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  But  no 
one  can  deny  its  power. 

Here,  as  in  AlVs  Well  That  Ends  Well,  we  have  one 
beautiful  character,  that  of  Isabella,  like  a  light 
shining  in  corruption.  Here,  too,  the  wronged  Mariana, 
in  order  to  win  back  the  faithless  Angelo,  is  forced  to 
resort  to  the  same  device  to  which  Helena  had  to 
stoop.  But  this  play  is  darker  and  more  savage  than 
its  predecessor.  Angelo,  as  a  governor,  sentencing 
men  to  death  for  the  very  sin  which  he  as  a  private 
man  is  trying  to  commit,  is  contemptible  on  a  huger 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      177 

and  more  devilish  scale  than  Bertram.  Lucio,  if  not 
more  base  than  Parolles,  is  at  least  more  malignant. 
And  Claudio,  attempting  to  save  his  life  by  his  sister's 
shame,  is  an  incarnation  of  the  healthy  animal  joy  of 
life  almost  wholly  divested  of  the  ideals  of  manhood. 
In  a  way,  the  play  ends  happily ;  but  it  is  about  as 
cheerful  as  the  red  gleam  of  sunset  which  shoots 
athwart  a  retreating  thunderstorm. 

Date.  —  The  play  was  first  published  in  the  Folio  of  1623. 
It  is  generally  believed,  however,  that  it  was  written  about  1603. 
In  the  first  place,  the  verse  tests  and  general  character  of  the 
play  seem  to  fit  that  date ;  secondly,  there  are  two  passages, 
I,  i,  68-73  and  II,  iv,  27-30,  which  are  usually  interpreted  as 
allusions  to  the  attitude  of  James  I  toward  the  people  after  he 
came  to  the  throne  in  1603  ;  and,  thirdly,  there  are  many  turns 
of  phrase  which  remind  one  of  Hamlet  and  which  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  the  two  plays  were  written  near  together.  Barksted's 
Myrrha  (1607)  contains  a  passage  apparently  borrowed  from 
this  comedy,  which  helps  in  determining  the  latest  possible  date 
of  composition. 

Sources.  —  Shakespeare  borrowed  his  material  from  a  writer 
named  George  Whetstone,  who  in  1578  printed  a  play.  Promos 
and  Cassandra,  containing  most  of  the  story  of  Measure  for 
Measure.  In  1582  the  same  author  published  a  prose  version 
of  the  story  in  his  Heptameron  of  Civil  Discourses.  Whet- 
stone in  turn  borrowed  his  material,  which  came  originally 
from  the  Hecatommithi  of  Giraldi  Cinthio.  Shakespeare  en- 
nobled the  underlying  thought  as  far  as  he  could,  and  added 
the  character  of  Mariana. 

Julius  Caesar.  —  The  interest  in  Julius  Ccesar  does 
not  focus  on  any  one  person  as  completely  as  in  the 
other  great  tragedies.  Like  the  chronicle  plays  which 
had  preceded  it,  it  gives  rather  a  grand  panorama  of 
history  than  the  fate  of  any  particular  hero.     This  ex- 


178    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

plains  its  title.  It  is  not  the  story  of  Julius  Caesar 
tlie  man,  but  of  tliat  great  political  upheaval  of  which 
Caesar  was  cause  and  center.  That  upheaval  begins 
with  his  attempt  at  despotism  and  the  crown;  it 
reaches  its  climax  in  his  death,  which  disturbs  the 
political  equilibrium  of  the  whole  nation ;  and  at  last 
subsides  with  the  decline  and  downfall  of  Caesar's 
enemies.  Shakespeare  has  departed  from  history  in 
drawing  the  character  of  the  great  conqueror,  making 
it  more  weak,  vain,  and  pompous  than  that  of  the  real 
man.  Yet  even  in  the  play  "  the  mightiest  Julius  " 
is  an  impressive  figure.     Alive,  he 

"doth  bestride  the  narrow  world      Qo/^^i 
Like  a  Colossus  "  ;  ^^i 


and  his  influence,  like  an  unseen  force,  shapes  the  fates 
of  the  living  after  he  himself  is  dead. 

In  so  far  as  the  tragedy  has  any  individual  hero, 
that  hero  is  Brutus  rather  than  Caesar  himself.  Brutus 
is  a  man  of  noble  character,  but  deficient  in  practical 
judgment  and  knowledge  of  men.  With  the  best  of 
motives  he  allows  Cassius  to  hoodwink  him  and  draw 
him  into  the  conspiracy  against  Caesar.  Through  the 
same  short-sighted  generosity  he  allows  his  enemy 
Antony  to  address  the  crowd  after  Caesar's  death,  with 
the  result  that  Antony  rouses  the  people  against  him 
and  drives  him  and  his  fellow  conspirators  out  of 
Rome.  Then  when  he  and  Cassius  gather  an  army  in 
Asia  to  fight  with  Antony,  we  find  him  too  impracti- 
cally  scrupulous  to  raise  money  by  the  usual  means ; 
and  for  that  reason  short  of  cash  and  drawn  into  a 
quarrel  with  his  brother   general.      His   subsequent 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      179 

death  at  Philippi  is  the  logical  outcome  of  his  own  na- 
ture, too  good  for  so  evil  an  age,  too  short-sighted  for 
so  critical  a  position. 

Most  of  the  old  Roman  heroes  inspire  respect  rather 
than  love;  and  something  of  their  stern  impressive- 
ness  lingers  in  the  atmosphere  of  this  Roman  play. 
Here  and  there  it  has  very  touching  scenes,  such  as 
that  between  Brutus  and  his  page  (IV,  iii) ;  but 
in  the  main  it  is  great;  not  through  its  power  to 
elicit  sympathetic  tears,  but  through  its  dignity  and 
grandeur.  It  is  one  of  the  stateliest  of  tragedies, 
lofty  in  language,  majestic  in  movement,  logical  and 
cogent  in  thought.  We  can  never  mourn  for  Brutus 
and  Portia  as  we  do  for  Romeo  and  Juliet,  or  for  Lear 
and  Cordelia;  but  we  feel  that  we  have  breathed  in 
their  company  an  air  which  is  keen  and  bracing,  and 
have  caught  a  glimpse  of 

"  The  grandeur  that  was  Kome." 

Date.  —  We  have  no  printed  copy  of  Julius  Ccesar  earlier 
than  that  of  the  First  Folio.  Since  it  was  not  mentioned  by 
Meres  in  1598  and  was  alluded  to  in  1601  in  John  Weever's 
Mirrour  of  Martyrs^  it  probably  appeared  between  those  two 
dates.  Weever  says  in  his  dedication  that  his  work  "  some  two 
years  ago  was  made  fit  for  the  print. ' '  This  apparently  means 
that  he  wrote  the  allusion  to  Julius  Ccesar  in  1599  and  that 
consequently  the  play  had  been  produced  by  then.  There  is  a 
possible  reference  to  it  in  Ben  Jonson's  Every  Man  Out  of  His 
Humour,  which  came  out  in  1599.  Metrical  tests  and  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  play  agi-ee  with  these  conclusions.  Hence 
we  can  put  the  date  between  1599-1601,  with  a  preference  for 
the  former  year. 

Sources.  —  Shakespeare  drew  his  material  from  North's 
Plutarch,  using  the  lives  of  Caesar,  Brutus,  and  Antony.     He  has 


180    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

enlarged  the  parts  of  Casca  and  Lepidus,  and  made  Brutus 
much  nobler  than  in  the  original.  This  last  change  was  a  dra- 
matic necessity  in  order  to  give  the  play  a  hero  with  whom  we 
could  sympathize. 

Hamlet.  —  On  the  surface  the  story  of  Hamlet  is  a 
comparatively  simple  oae.  The  young  prince  is  heart- 
broken over  the  recent  death  of  his  father,  and  his 
mother's  scandalously  hasty  marriage  to  Hamlet's 
uncle,  the  usurping  sovereign.  In  this  mood  he  is 
brought  face  to  face  with  his  father's  spirit,  told 
that  his  uncle  was  his  father's  murderer,  and  given 
as  a  sacred  duty  the  task  of  revenging  the  crime. 
To  this  object  he  sacrifices  all  other  aims  in  life  — 
pleasure,  ambition,  and  love.  But  this  savage  task  is 
the  last  one  on  earth  for  which  his  fine-grained  nature 
was  fitted.  -  He  wastes  his  energy  in  feverish  efforts 
which  fail  to  accomplish  his  purpose,  just  as  many 
a  man  wavers  helplessly  in  trying  to  do  something  for 
which  nature  never  intended  him.-  Partly  to  deceive 
his  enemies,  partly  to  provide  a  freer  expression  for 
his  pent-up  emotions  than  the  normal  conditions  of 
life  would  justify,  he  acts  the  role  of  one  who  is  men- 
tally deranged.  Finally,  more  by  chance  than  any 
plan  of  his  own,  he  achieves  his  revenge  on  the  king, 
but  not  until  he  himself  is  mortally  wounded.  His 
story  is  the  tragedy  of  a  sensitive,  refined,  imaginative 
nature  which  is  required  to  perform  a  brutal  task  in 
a  brutal  world. 

But  around  this  story  as  a  framework  Shakespeare 
has  woven  such  a  wealth  of  poetry  and  philosophy  that 
the  play  has  been  called  the  "  tragedy  of  thought.''  It 
is  in  Hamlet's  brain  that  the  great  action  of  the  drama 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      181 

takes  place  ^  the  other  characters  are  mere  accessories 
and  foils.  Here  we  are  brought  face  to  face  with  the 
fear  and  mystery  of  the  future  life  and  the  deepest 
problems  of  this.  It  is  hardly  true  to  say  that  Hamlet 
himself  is  a  philosopher.  He  gives  some  very  wise 
advice  to  the  players ;  but  in  the  main  he  is  grappling 
problems  without  solving  them/  peering  into  the  dark, 
but  bringing  from  it  no  definite  addition  to  our  knowl- 
edge. He  represents  rather  the  eternal  questioning 
of  the  human  heart  when  face  to  face  with  the  great 
mysteries  of  existence;  and  perhaps  this  accounts 
largely  for  the  wide  and  lasting  popularity  of  the 
play.  Side  by  side  with  this  deep-souled,  earnest 
man,  moving  in  the  shadow  of  the  unseen,  with  his 
terrible  duties  and  ^haunting  fears,  Shakespeare  has 
placed  in  intentional  mockery  the  old  dotard  Polonius, 
the  incarnation  of  shallow  worldly  wisdom. 

No  other  play  of  Shakespeare's  has  called  forth 
such  a  mass  of  comment  as  this  or  so  many  varied 
interpretations.  Neither  has  any  other  roused  a 
4€eper  interest  in  its  readers.  The 'spell  which  it 
/basts  over  old  and  young  alike  is  due  partly  to  the 
character  o^  the  young  prince  himself,  partly  to  the 
"^suggestive  mystery  with  which  it  invests  all  problems 
of  life  and  sorrow. 

Date.  —  '  A  booke  called  the  Eevenge  of  Hamlett '  was  en- 
tered in  the  Stationers'  Register  July,  1602.  Consequently, 
Shakespeare's  Preliminary  version,  as  represented  by  the  First 
Quarto,  though  not  printed  until  1603,  must  have  been  written 
in  or  before  the  spring  months  of  1602  ;  the  second  version 
1603-1604. 

Sources.  —  The  plot  came  originally  from  the  Historia  Danica^ 
a  history  of  Denmark  in  Latin,  written  in  the  twelfth  century 


182    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

by  Saxo  Grammaticus,  a  Danish  scholar.  About  1570  the  story- 
was  retold  in  French  in  Belleforest's  Histoires  Tragiques.  Be- 
sides his  debt  to  Belief orest,  it  seems  almost  certain  that  Shake- 
speare drew  from  an  earlier  English  tragedy  of  Hamlet  by 
another  man.  This  earlier  play  is  lost ;  but  Nash,  a  contem- 
porary writer,  alludes  to  it  as  early  as  1589,  and  Henslowe's 
Diary  records  its  performance  in  1594.  Somewhat  before  1590, 
an  early  dramatist,  Thomas  Kyd,  had  written  a  play  called 
The  Spanish  Tragedy,  which,  though  far  inferior  to  Shake- 
speare's Hamlet,  resembled  it  in  many  ways.  This  likeness 
has  caused  scholars  to  suspect  that  Kyd  wrote  the  early 
Hamlet ;  and  their  suspicions  are  strengthened  by  an  ambiguous 
and  apparently  punning  allusion  to  ^sop's  Kidde  in  the  pas- 
sage by  Nash  mentioned  above.  A  crude  and  brutal  German 
play  on  the  subject  has  been  discovered,  which  is  believed  by 
many  to  be  a  translation  of  Kyd's  original  tragedy.  If  this 
is  true,  it  shows  how  enormously  Shakespeare  improved  on  his 
source. 

Editions.  —  A  very  badly  garbled  and  crude  form  of  this  play 
was  printed  in  1603,  and  is  known  as  the  First  Quarto.  A  much 
better  one,  which  contained  most  of  the  tragedy  as  we  read  it, 
appeared  in  1604,  and  is  called  the  Second  Quarto.  Sevei-al 
other  quartos  followed,  for  the  play  was  exceedingly  popular. 
The  Folio  omits  certain  passages  found  in  the  Second  Quarto, 
and  introduces  certain  new  ones.  Both  the  new  passages  and 
the  omitted  ones  are  included  in  modern  editions ;  so  that,  as 
has  often  been  said,  our  modern  Hamlet  is  longer  than  any 
Hamlet  which  Shakespeare  left  us.  The  First  Quarto  is  gen- 
erally regarded  as  a  pirated  copy  of  Shakespeare's  scenario, 
or  first  rough  draft,  of  the  play. 

Othello.  —  This  play  has  often  been  called  the  trag- 
edy of  jealousy,  but  that  is  a  misleading  statement. 
Othello,  as  Coleridge  pointed  out,  is  not  a  constitution- 
ally jealous  man,  such  as  Leontes  in  The  Winter^ s  Tale. 
His  distrust  of  his  wife  is  the  natural  suspicion  of  a 
man   lost  amid  new  and   inexplicable   surroundings. 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      183 

Women  are  proverbially  suspicious  in  business,  not  be- 
cause nature  made  them  so,  but  because,  as  they  are  in 
utter  ignorance  of  standards  by  which  to  judge,  they 
feel  their  helplessness  in  the  face  of  deceit.  Othello 
feels  the  same  helplessness.  Trained  up  in  wars  from 
his  cradle,  he  could  tell  a  true  soldier  from  a  traitor  at 
a  glance,  with  the  calm  confidence  of  a  veteran ;  but 
women  and  their  motives  are  to  him  an  uncharted 
sea.  Suddenly  a  beautiful  young  heiress  falls  in  love 
with  him,  and  leaves  home  and  friends  to  marry  him. 
He  stands  on  the  threshold  of  a  new  realm,  happy  but 
bewildered.  Then  comes  lago,  his  trusted  subordinate, 
—  who,  as  Othello  knows,  possesses  that  knowledge  of 
women  and  of  civilian  life  which  he  himself  lacks, — and 
whispers  in  his  ear  that  his  bride  is  false  to  him;  that 
under  this  fair  veneer  lurks  the  eternal  feminine  as 
they  had  seen  it  in  the  common  creatures  of  the  camp ; 
that  she  has  fooled  her  husband  as  these  women  have  so 
often  fooled  his  soldiers ;  and  that  the  rough-and-ready 
justice  of  the  camp  should  be  her  reward.  Had 
Othello  any  knowledge  or  experience  in  such  matters 
to  fall  back  on,  he  might  anchor  to  that,  and  become 
definitely  either  the  trusting  husband  or  the  Spartan 
judge.  But  as  it  is,  he  is  whirled  back  and  forth  in  a 
maelstrom  of  agonized  doubt,  until  compass,  bearings, 
and  wisdom  lost,  he  ends  all  in  universal  shipwreck. 

The  character  of  lago  is  one  of  the  subtlest  studies 
of  intelligent  depravity  ever  created  by  man.  Ostensi- 
bly his  motive  is  revenge ;  but  in  reality  his  wickedness 
seems  due  rather  to  a  perverted  mental  activity,  un- 
balanced by  heart  or  conscience.  As  Napoleon  en- 
joyed manoeuvring  armies  or  Lasker  studying  chess,  so 


184    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

lago  enjoys  the  sense  of  his  own  mental  power  in 
handling  his  human  pawns,  in  feeling  himself  master 
of  the  situation.  If  he  ever  had  natural  affections, 
they  have  been  atrophied  in  the  pursuit  of  this  devilish 
game. 

With  Desdemona  the  feminine  element,  which  had 
been  negligible  in  Julius  Caesar  and  thrown  into  the 
background  in  Hamlet,  becomes  a  prominent  feature, 
and  remains  so  through  the  later  tragedies.  There  is 
a  pathetic  contrast  between  the  beautiful  character  of 
Desdemona  and  her  undeserved  fate,  just  as  there  is 
between  the  real  nobility  of  Othello  and  the  mad  act 
by  which  he  ruins  his  own  happiness.  For  that 
reason  this  is  perhaps  the  most  touching  of  all  Shake- 
speare's tragedies. 

Date.  —  The  play  was  certainly  published  after  1601,  for  it 
contains  several  allusions  to  Holland's  translation  of  the  Latin 
author  Pliny,  which  appeared  in  that  year.  Malone,  one  of  the 
early  editors  of  Shakespeare,  says  that  Othello  was  acted  at 
Hallowmas,  1604.  We  not  know  on  what  evidence  he  based  this 
assertion ;  but  since  the  metrical  tests  all  point  to  the  same 
date,  his  statement  is  generally  accepted.  The  First  Quarto  did 
not  appear  until  1622,  six  years  after  Shakespeare  died  and 
one  year  before  the  appearance  of  the  First  Folio.  This  was 
the  only  play  published  in  quarto  between  Shakespeare's  death 
and  1623.  There  are  frequent  oaths  in  the  Quarto  which  have 
been  very  much  modified  in  the  Folio,  and  this  strengthens  our 
belief  that  the  manuscript  from  which  the  Quarto  was  printed 
was  written  about  1604,  for  shortly  after  that  date  an  act  was 
passed  against  the  use  of  profanity  in  plays. 

Sources.  —  The  plot  was  taken  from  Giraldi  Cinthio's  Hec- 
atommithi  (seventh  novel  of  the  third  decade).  A  French  trans- 
lation of  the  Italian  was  made  in  1583-1584,  and  this  Shakespeare 
may  have  used.    We  know  of  no  English  translation  until 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      185 

years  after  Shakespeare  died.  Many  details  are  changed  in 
the  play,  and  the  whole  story  is  raised  to  a  far  nobler  plane. 
In  the  original  the  heroine  is  beaten  to  death  with  a  stocking 
filled  with  sand  ;  Othello  is  tortured,  but  refuses  to  confess,  and 
later  is  murdered  by  his  wife's  revengeful  kinsmen.  This  crude, 
bloody,  and  long-drawn-out  story  is  in  striking  contrast  with 
the  masterly  ending  of  the  tragedy. 

King  Lear.  —  As  Romeo  and  Juliet  shows  the  trag- 
edy of  youth,  so  Lear  shows  the  tragedy  of  old  age. 
King  Lear  has  probably  been  a  good  and  able  man  in 
his  day;  but  now  time  has  impaired  his  judgment, 
and  he  is  made  to  suffer  fearfully  for  those  errors  for 
which  nature,  and  not  he,  is  to  blame.  Duped  by  the 
hypocritical  smoothness  of  his  two  elder  daughters, 
he  gives  them  all  his  lands  and  power;  while  his 
youngest  daughter  Cordelia,  who  truly  loves  him,  is 
turned  away  because  she  is  too  honest  to  humor  an 
old  man's  whim.  The  result  is  what  might  have  been 
expected.  Lear  has  put  himself  absolutely  into  the 
power  of  his  two  older  daughters,  who  are  the  very 
incarnation  of  heartlessness  and  ingratitude.  By 
their  inhuman  treatment  he  is  driven  out  into  the 
night  and  storm,  exposing  his  white  head  to  a  tempest 
so  fierce  that  even  the  wild  beasts  refuse  to  face  it. 
As  a  result  of  exposure  and  mental  suffering,  his  mind 
becomes  unhinged.  At  last  his  daughter  Cordelia 
finds  him,  gives  him  refuge,  and  nurses  him  back  to 
reason  and  hope.  But  this  momentary  gleam  of  light 
only  makes  darker  by  contrast  the  end  which  closely 
follows,  where  Cordelia  is  killed  by  treachery  and 
Lear  dies  broken-hearted. 

The  fate  of  Lear  finds  a  parallel  in  that  of  Glouces- 


186    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

ter  in  the  underplot.  Like  his  king,  this  nobleman 
has  proved  an  unwise  father,  favoring  the  treacherous 
child  and  disowning  the  true.  He  also  is  made  to 
pay  a  fearful  penalty  for  his  mistakes,  ending  in  his 
death.  But  he  is  represented  as  more  justly  punished, 
less  excusable  through  the  weaknesses  of  age;  and 
for  this  reason  his  grief  appeals  to  us  as  an  intensify- 
ing reflection  of  Lear's  misery  rather  than  as  a  rival 
for  that  in  our  sympathy.  The  character  of  Edmund 
shows  some  likeness  to  that  of  Richard  III;  and  a 
comparison  of  the  two  will  show  how  Shakespeare  has 
developed  in  the  interval.  Both  are  stern,  able,  and 
heartless ;  but  Edmund  unites  to  these  more  complex 
feelings  known  only  to  the  close  student  of  life. 
Weakness  and  passion  mingle  in  his  love;  supersti- 
tion and  some  faint,  abortive  motion  of  conscience 
unite  to  torment  him  when  dying. 

There  is  a  strangely  lyric  element  about  this  great 
tragedy,  an  element  of  heart-broken  emotion  hovering 
on  the  edge  of  passionate  song.  It  is  like  a  great 
chorus  in  which  the  victims  of  treachery  and  ingrati- 
tude blend  their  denouncing  cries.  The  tremulous 
voice  of  Lear  rises  terrible  above  all  the  others;  and  to 
his  helpless  curses  the  plaintive  satire  of  the  fool  an- 
swers like  a  mocking  echo  in  halls  of  former  enjoyment. 
Thunder  and  lightning  are  the  fearful  accompaniment 
of  the  song ;  and  like  faint  antiphonal  responses  from 
the  underplot  come  the  voices  of  the  wronged  Edgar 
and  the  outraged  Gloucester. 

Date.  —  The  date  of  King  Lear  lies  between  1603  and  1606. 
In  1603  appeared  a  book  (Harsnett's  Dedaration  of  Egregious 
Popish  Impostures)  from  which  Shakespeare  afterward  drew 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      187 

the  names  of  the  devils  in  the  pretended  ravings  of  Edgar,  to- 
gether with  similar  details.  In  1606,  as  we  know  from  an 
entry  in  the  Stationers'  Kegister,  the  play  was  performed  at 
Whitehall  at  Christmas.  A  late  edition  of  the  old  King  Leir 
(not  Shakespeare's)  was  entered  on  the  Register  May  8,  1605  ; 
and  it  is  very  plausible  that  Shakespeare's  tragedy  was  then 
having  a  successful  run  and  that  the  old  play  was  revived  to 
take  advantage  of  an  occasion  when  its  story  was  popular. 
Hence  the  date  usually  given  for  the  composition  of  King  Lear 
is  1604-5.  A  quarto,  with  a  poor  text,  and  carelessly  printed, 
appeared  in  1608  ;  another,  (bearing  the  assumed  date  of  1608) 
in  1619.  The  First  Folio  text  is  much  the  best.  Three  hundred 
lines  lacking  in  it  are  made  up  for  by  a  hundred  lines  absent 
from  the  quartos. 

Sources.  — The  story  of  Lear  in  some  form  or  another  had 
appeared  in  many  writers  before  Shakespeare.  The  sources 
from  which  he  drew  chiefly  were  probably  the  early  accounts 
by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  a  composite  poem  called  The  Mir- 
rour  for  Magistrates^  Holinshed's  Chronicles,  Spenser's  Faerie 
Queene,  and  lastly  an  old  play  of  Ki7ig  Leir,  supposed  to  be 
the  one  acted  in  1594.  This  old  play  ended  happily;  Shake- 
speare first  introduced  the  tragic  ending.  He  also  invented 
Lear's  madness,  the  banishment  and  disguise  of  Kent,  and  the 
characters  of  Burgundy  and  the  fool.  The  underplot  he  drew 
from  the  story  of  the  blind  king  of  Paphlagonia  in  Arcadia, 
a  long,  rambling  novel  of  adventure  by  Sir  Philip  Sidney. 

Macbeth.  —  Macbeth,  one  of  the  great  Scottish  nobles 
of  early  times,  is  led,  partly  by  his  own  ambition,  partly 
by  the  instigation  of  evil  supernatural  powers,  to  murder 
King  Duncan  and  usurp  his  place  on  the  throne  of  Scot- 
land. In  this  bloody  task  he  is  aided  and  encouraged 
by  his  wife,  a  woman  of  powerful  character,  whose 
conscience  is  temporarily  smothered  by  her  frantic 
desire  to  advance  her  husband's  career.  We  are  forced 
to  sympathize  with  this  guilty  pair,  wicked  as  they 


188    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

are,  because  we  are  made  to  feel  that  they  are  not 
naturally  criminals,  that  they  are  swept  into  crime  by 
the  misdirection  of  energies  which,  if  directed  along 
happier  lines,  might  have  been  praiseworthy.  Macbeth, 
vigorous  and  imaginative,  has  a  poet's  or  conqueror's 
yearning  toward  a  larger  fullness  of  life,  experience, 
joy.  It  is  the  woeful  misdirection  of  this  splendid 
energy  through  unlawful  channels  which  makes  him  a 
murderer,  not  the  callous,  animal  indifference  of  the 
born  criminal.  Similarly,  his  wife  is  a  woman  of  great 
executive  ability,  reaching  out  instinctively  for  a  field 
large  enough  in  which  to  make  that  ability  gain  its 
maximum  of  accomplishment.  Nature  meant  her  for 
a  queen;  and  it  is  the  instinctive  effort  to  find  her 
natural  sphere  of  action,  —  an  effort  common  to  all  hu- 
manity —  which  blinds  her  conscience  at  the  fatal  mo- 
ment. Once  entered  on  their  career  of  evil,  they  find 
no  chance  for  turning  back.  Suspicions  are  aroused, 
and  Macbeth  feels  himself  forced  to  guard  himself  from 
the  effects  of  the  first.  The  ghosts  of  his  victims  haunt 
his  guilty  conscience;  his  wife  dies  heart-broken  with 
remorse  which  comes  too  late ;  and  he  himself  is  killed 
in  battle  by  his  own  rebellious  countrymen. 

Between  the  characters  of  Macbeth  and  his  wife  the 
dramatist  has  drawn  a  subtle  but  vital  distinction. 
Macbeth  is  an  unprincipled  but  imaginative  man,  with 
a  strong  tincture  of  reverence  and  awe.  Hitherto  he 
has  been  restrained  in  the  straight  path  of  an  upright 
life  by  his  respect  for  conventions.  When  once  that 
barrier  is  broken  down,  he  has  no  purely  moral  check 
in  his  own  nature  to  replace  it,  and  rushes  like  a  flood, 
with  ever  growing  impetus,  from  crime  to  crime.     His 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      189 

wife,  on  the  other  hand,  has  a  conscience;  and  con- 
science, unlike  awe  for  conventions,  can  be  temporarily 
suppressed,  but  not  destroyed.  It  reawakes  when  the 
first  great  crime  is  over,  drives  the  unhappy  queen  from 
her  sleepless  couch  night  after  night,  and  hounds  her 
at  last  to  death. 

This  is  the  shortest  of  all  Shakespeare's  plays  in 
actual  number  of  lines ;  and  no  other  work  of  his  reveals 
such  condensation  and  lightning-like  rapidity  of  move- 
ment. It  is  the  tragedy  of  eager  ambition,  which  allows 
a  man  no  respite  after  the  first  fatal  mistake,  but  hurries 
him  on  irresistibly  through  crime  after  crime  to  the 
final  disaster.  Over  all,  like  a  dark  cloud  above  a 
landscape,  hovers  the  presence  of  the  supernatural  be- 
ings who  are  training  on  the  sinful  but  unfortunate 
monarch  to  his  ruin. 

Authorship.  —  The  speeches  of  Hecate  and  the  dialogue  con- 
nected with  them  in  IH,  v  and  IV,  i,  39-47  are  suspected  by 
many  to  be  the  work  of  Thomas  Middleton,  a  well-known  con- 
temporary playwright.  They  are  unquestionably  inferior  to 
most  of  the  play.  Messrs.  Clark  and  Wright  have  assigned 
several  other  passages  to  Middleton;  but  these  are  now  gen- 
erally regarded  as  Shakespeare's,  and  some  of  them  are  consid- 
ered as  by  no  means  below  his  usual  high  level. 

Date.  —  We  find  no  copy  of  Macbeth  earlier  than  the  First 
Folio.  It  was  certainly  written  before  1610,  however ;  for  Dr. 
Simon  Forman  saw  it  acted  that  year  and  records  the  fact  in  his 
Booke  of  Plaies.  The  allusion  to  "  two-fold  balls  and  treble 
sceptres  "  (IV,  i,  121)  shows  that  the  play  was  written  after  1603 
when  James  I  became  king  of  both  Scotland  and  England.  So 
does  the  allusion  to  the  habit  of  touching  for  the  king's  evil  (IV, 
iii,  140-159), — a  custom  which  James  revived.  The  reference 
to  an  equivocator  in  the  porter's  soliloquy  (H,  iii)  may  allude 
to  Henry  Garnet,  who  was  tried  in  1606  for  complicity  in  the 


190    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

famous  Gunpowder  Plot,  and  who  is  said  to  have  upheld  the 
doctrine  of  equivocation.  The  date  of  composition  is  usually 
placed  1605-6. 

Sources.  —  The  plot  is  borrowed  from  Holinshed's  Historie  of 
Scotland.  Most  of  the  material  is  taken  from  the  part  relating 
to  the  reigns  of  Duncan  and  Macbeth  ;  but  other  incidents,  such 
as  the  drugging  of  the  grooms,  are  from  the  murder  of  Duncan's 
ancestor  Duffe,  which  is  described  in  another  part  of  Holinshed. 

Antony  and  Cleopatra.  —  There  is  no  other  passion 
in  mankind  which  makes  such  fools  of  wise  men,  such 
weaklings  of  brave  ones,  as  that  of  sinful  love.  For 
this  very  reason  it  is  the  most  tragic  of  all  human 
passions ;  and  from  this  comes  the  dramatic  power  of 
Antony  and  Cleopatra.  The  ruin  of  a  contemptible 
man  is  never  impressive ;  but  the  ruin  of  an  imposing 
character  like  Antony's  through  the  one  weak  spot  in 
his  powerful  nature  has  all  the  somber  impressiveness 
of  a  burning  city  or  some  other  great  disaster. 

Like  Julius  Ccesar,  this  play  is  founded  on  Roman 
history.  It  begins  in  Egypt  with  a  picture  of  Antony 
fascinated  by  the  Egyptian  queen.  The  urgent  needs 
of  the  divided  Roman  world  call  him  away  to  Italy. 
Here,  once  free  of  Cleopatra's  presence,  he  becomes  his 
old  self,  a  reveler,  yet  diplomatic  and  self-seeking. 
From  motives  of  policy  he  marries  Octavia,  sister  of 
Octavius  Caesar,  and  for  a  brief  space  seems  assured 
of  a  brilliant  future.  But  the  old  spell  draws  him 
back.  He  returns  to  Cleopatra,  and  Octavius  in  re- 
venge for  Octavia's  wrongs  makes  war  upon  him. 
Cleopatra  proves  still  Antony's  evil  genius.  Her  se- 
duction has  already  drawn  him  into  war ;  now  her 
cowardice  in  the  crisis  of  the  battle  decides  the  war 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE   THIRD  PERIOD      191 

against  him.  From  that  point  the  fate  of  both  is  one 
headlong  rush  to  inevitable  ruin. 

In  the  character  of  Cleopatra,  Shakespeare  has  made 
a  wonderful  study  of  the  fascination  which  beauty  and 
charm  exert,  even  when  coupled  with  moral  worth- 
lessness.  We  do  not  love  her,  we  do  not  pity  her  when 
she  dies ;  but  we  feel  that  in  spite  of  her  idle  love  of 
power  and  pleasure,  she  has  given  life  a  richer  mean- 
ing. We  are  fascinated  by  her  as  by  some  beautiful 
poison  plant,  the  sight  of  which  causes  an  aesthetic 
thrill,  its  touch,  disease  and  death. 

Powerful  as  is  this  play,  and  in  many  ways  tragic,  it 
by  no  means  stirs  our  sympathies  as  do  Macbeth,  King 
Lear,  and  Othello.  Sin  for  Antony  and  Cleopatra  is 
not  at  all  the  unmixed  cup  of  woe  which  it  proves  for 
Macbeth  and  his  lady.  Here  at  the  end  the  lovers 
pay  the  price  of  lust  and  folly ;  but  before  paying  that 
price,  they  have  had  its  adequate  equivalent  in  the 
voluptuous  joy  of  life.  Moreover,  death  loses  half  its 
terrors  for  Antony  through  the  very  military  vigor  of 
his  character ;  and  for  Cleopatra,  because  of  the  cunning 
which  renders  it  painless.  What  impresses  us  most  is 
not  the  pathos  of  their  fate,  but  rather  the  sublime 
folly  with  which,  deliberately  and  open-eyed,  they 
barter  a  world  for  the  intoxicating  joy  of  passion. 
Impulsive  as  children,  powerful  as  demigods,  they 
made  nations  their  toys,  and  life  and  death  a  game. 
Prudence  could  not  rob  them  of  that  heritage  of  delight 
which  they  considered  their  natural  birthright,  nor 
death,  when  it  came,  undo  what  they  had  already  en- 
joyed. Folly  on  so  superhuman  a  scale  becomes,  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  dramatic. 


192    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

Date.  —  In  May,  1608,  there  was  entered  in  the  Stationers' 
Eegister  '  A  Book  called  Antony  and  Cleopatra ' ;  and  this  was 
probably  the  play  under  discussion.  The  internal  evidence 
agi-ees  with  this ;  hence  the  date  is  usually  set  at  1607-8.  In 
spite  of  the  above  entry,  the  book  does  not  appear  to  have  been 
printed  at  that  time  ;  and  the  first  copy  which  has  come  down 
to  us  is  that  in  the  1623  Folio. 

Sources.  —  Shakespeare's  one  source  appears  to  have  been 
the  Life  of  Marcus  Antonius  in  North's  Plutarch;  and  he 
followed  that  very  closely.  The  chief  changes  in  the  play  con- 
sist in  the  omission  of  certain  events  which  would  have  clogged 
the  dramatic  action. 

Coriolanus.  —  Here  follows  the  tragedy  of  over- 
weening pride.  The  trouble  with  Coriolanus  is  not 
ambition,  as  is  the  case  with  Macbeth.  He  cares  little 
for  crowns,  office,  or  any  outward  honor.  Self -centered, 
self-sufficient,  contemptuous  of  all  mankind  outside  of 
his  own  immediate  circle  of  friends,  he  dies  at  last  be- 
cause he  refuses  to  recognize  those  ties  of  sympathy 
which  should  bind  all  men  and  all  classes  of  men  to- 
gether. He  leads  his  countrymen  to  battle,  and  shows 
great  courage  at  the  siege  of  Corioli.  On  his  return  he 
becomes  a  candidate  for  consul.  But  to  win  this  office, 
he  must  conciliate  the  common  people  whom  he  holds 
in  contempt ;  and  instead  of  conciliating  them,  he  so 
exasperates  them  by  his  overbearing  scorn  that  he  is 
driven  out  of  Rome.  With  the  savage  vindictiveness 
characteristic  of  insulted  pride,  he  joins  the  enemies  of 
his  country,  brings  Rome  to  the  edge  of  ruin,  and  spares 
her  at  last  only  at  the  entreaties  of  his  mother.  Then 
he  returns  to  Corioli  to  be  killed  there  by  treachery. 

Men  like  Coriolanus  are  not  lovable,  either  in  real 
life  or  fiction ;   but,  despite  his  faults,  he  commands 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD      193 

our  admiration  in  his  success,  and  our  sympathy  in 
his  death.  We  must  remember  that  ancient  Rome 
had  never  heard  our  new  doctrine  of  the  freedom  and 
equality  of  man ;  that  the  common  people,  as  drawn 
by  Shakespeare,  were  objects  of  contempt  and  just 
cause  for  exasperation.  Again,  we  must  remember 
that  if  Coriolanus  had  a  high  opinion  of  himself,  he 
also  labored  hard  to  deserve  it.  He  was  full  of  the 
French  spirit  of  noblesse  oblige.  Cruel,  arrogant, 
harsh,  he  might  be ;  but  he  was  never  cowardly,  under- 
handed, or  mean.  He  was  a  man  whose  ideals  were 
better  than  his  judgment,  and  whose  prejudiced  view 
of  life  made  his  character  seem  much  worse  than  it 
was.     The  lives  of  such  men  are  usually  tragic. 

Date.  —  The  play  was  not  printed  until  the  appearance  of  the 
First  Folio,  and  external  evidence  as  to  its  date  is  almost  worth- 
less. On  the  strength  of  internal  evidence,  meter,  style,  etc., 
which  mark  it  unquestionably  as  a  late  play,  it  is  usually  as- 
signed to  1609. 

Sources.  —  Shakespeare's  source  was  Plutarch's  Life  of  Corio- 
lanus (North's  translation).  As  in  Julius  Ccesar  and  Antony 
and  Cleopatra,  he  followed  Plutarch  closely. 

Timon  of  Athens.  —  As  Coriolanus  was  the  tragedy 
of  a  man  who  is  too  self-centered,  so  Timon  is  the 
tragedy  of  a  man  who  is  not  self -centered  enough. 
His  good  and  bad  traits  alike,  generosity  and  extrava- 
gance, friendship  and  vanity,  combine  to  make  him 
live  and  breathe  in  the  attitude  of  other  men  toward 
him.  From  this  comes  his  unbounded  prodigality  by 
which  in  a  few  years  he  squanders  an  enormous  for- 
tune in  giving  pleasure  to  his  friends.  From  this  lack 
of  self -poise,  too,  comes  the  tremendous  reaction  later. 


194    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

when  he  learns  that  his  imagined  world  of  love  and 
friendship  and  popular  applause  was  a  mirage  of  the 
desert,  and  finds  himself  poverty-stricken  and  alone, 
the  dupe  of  sharpers,  the  laughing-stock  of  fools. 

Yet  in  spite  of  his  lack  of  balance,  he  is  full  of 
noble  qualities.  Apemantus  has  the  very  thing  which 
he  lacks,  yet  Apemantus  is  contemptible  beside  him. 
The  churlish  philosopher  is  like  some  dingy  little 
scow,  which  rides  out  the  tempest  because  the  small 
cargo  which  it  has  is  all  in  its  hold;  Timon  is  like 
some  splendid,  but  top-heavy,  battleship,  which  turns 
turtle  in  the  storm  through  lack  of  ballast.  There  is 
something  lionlike  and  magnificent,  despite  its  un- 
reason, in  the  way  he  accepts  the  inevitable,  and  later, 
after  the  discovery  of  the  gold,  spurns  away  both  the 
chance  of  wealth  and  the  human  jackals  whom  it  at- 
tracts. The  same  lordly  scorn  persists  after  him  in 
the  epitaph  which  he  leaves  behind :  — 

"  Here  lie  I,  Timon  ;  who  alive  all  living  men  did  hate. 
Pass  by  and  curse  thy  fill,  but  pass,  and  stay  not  here  thy 
gait." 

Yet  this  very  epitaph  of  the  dead  misanthrope  shows 
the  same  lack  of  self-sufficiency  which  characterized 
the  living  Timon.  He  despises  the  opinion  of  men, 
but  he  must  let  them  know  that  he  despises  it.  Corio- 
lanus  would  have  laughed  at  them  from  Elysium  and 
scorned  to  write  any  epitaph. 

No  other  Shakespearean  play,  with  the  exception  of 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  shows  the  human  race  in  a  light 
so  contemptible  as  this.  Aside  from  Timon  and  his 
faithful  steward,  there  is  not  one  person  in  the  play 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  THIRD  PERIOD       195 

who  seems  to  have  a  single  redeeming  trait.  All  of 
the  others  are  selfish,  and  most  of  them  are  treacher- 
ous and  cowardly. 

Authorship.  —  It  is  generally  believed  that  some  parts  of  the 
play  are  not  by  Shakespeare,  although  opinion  is  still  somewhat 
divided  as  to  what  is  and  is  not  his.  The  scenes  and  parts  of 
scenes  in  which  Apemantus  and  some  of  the  minor  characters 
appear  are  most  strongly  suspected. 

Date.  —  This  play  was  not  printed  until  the  publication  of  the 
First  Folio,  and  the  only  evidence  which  we  have  for  its  date  is 
in  the  meter  and  style  and  in  the  fact  that  some  of  the  speeches 
show  a  strong  resemblance  to  certain  ones  in  King  Lear.  The 
date  most  generally  approved  is  1607-8. 

Sources.  —  The  direct  source  was  probably  a  short  account  of 
Timon  in  Plutarch's  Life  of  Marcus  Antonhis.  The  same  story 
also  appears  in  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,  where  Shake- 
speare may  have  read  it.  Both  of  these  accounts,  however,  con- 
tain but  a  small  part  of  the  material  found  in  the  play.  Certain 
details  missing  in  them,  such  as  the  discovery  of  the  gold,  etc. , 
are  found  in  Timon  or  the  Misanthrope,  a  dialogue  by  Lucian, 
one  of  the  later  of  the  ancient  Greek  writers.  As  far  as  we 
know,  Lucian  had  not  been  translated  into  English  at  this  time; 
but  there  were  copies  of  his  works  in  Latin,  French,  and  Italian. 
"We  cannot  say  whether  Shakespeare  had  read  them  or  not.  In 
1842  a  play  on  Timon  was  printed  from  an  old  manuscript  which 
is  supposed  to  have  been  written  about  1600.  This  contains  a 
banquet  scene,  a  faithful  steward,  and  the  finding  of  the  gold. 
This  has  the  appearance  of  an  academic  play  rather  than  one 
meant  for  the  public  theaters,  so  it  is  probable  that  Shakespeare 
never  heard  of  it ;  but  it  is  barely  possible  that  he  knew  it  and 
used  it  as  a  source. 

The  most  helpful  book  yet  written  on  the  period  is  :  Shake- 
spearean Tragedy,  by  A.  C.  Bradley  (London,  Macmillan,  1910 
(1st  ed.  1904)). 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE     PLATS      OF     THE     FOURTH     PERIOD  ROMANTIC 

TRAGI-COMEDY 

No  less  clear  than  the  interest  in  tragic  themes 
which  attracted  the  London  audiences  for  the  half-a- 
dozen  years  following  1600,  is  the  shifting  of  popular  ap- 
proval towards  a  new  form  of  drama  about  1608.  This 
was  the  romantic  tragi-comedy,  a  type  of  drama  which 
puts  a  theme  of  sentimental  interest  into  events  and 
situations  that  come  close  to  the  tragic.  Shakespeare's 
plays  of  this  type  are  often  called  romances,  since  they 
tell  a  story  of  the  same  type  found  in  romantic  novels  of " 
the  time.  His  plays  contain  rather  less  of  the  tragic, 
and  more  of  fanciful  and  playful  hunfor  than  do  the 
plays  of  the  other  famous  masters  in  this  type,  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher;  his  characters  are  rather  more 
lifelike  and  appealing. 

While  the  tragi-comedies  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
which  were  written  from  1609  to  1611,  have  been 
shown  to  have  influenced  Shakespeare  in  his  romances, 
yet  in  several  ways  they  are  very  different.  The  work 
of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  tells  of  court  intrigue  and 
exaggerated  passions  of  hatred,  envy,  and  lust ;  Shake- 
speare's plays  tell  of  out-of-door  adventures,  and  the 
restoration  and  reconciliation  of  families  and  friends 
parted  by  misfortune.  Fletcher  contrives  well-con- 
196 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    197 

structed  plots,  depending,  indeed,  rather  too  much  on 
incident  and  situation  for  effect ;  Shakespeare  chooses 
for  his  plots  stories  which  possess  only  slight  unity 
of  theme,  and  depends  upon  character  and  atmosphere 
for  his  appeal.  Thus  the  romances  of  Shakespeare 
stand  out  as  a  strongly  marked  part  of  his  work,  dif- 
ferent in  treatment  from  the  plays  of  his  rivals  which 
perhaps  suggested  his  use  of  this  form.  Here,  as 
everywhere,  Shakespeare  exhibits  complete  mastery  of 
the  form  in  which  he  works. 

In  addition  to  the  romances  of  this  period,  Shake- 
speare had  some  share  in  the  undramatic  and  belated 
chronicle  play,  The  Life  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  most  of 
which  is  assigned  to  John  Fletcher.  In  looseness  of 
construction,  in  the  emphasis  on  character  in  distress, 
and  in  the  introduction  of  a  masque,  as  well  as  in  other 
ways,  this  play  resembles  the  tragi-comedies  of  the 
period  rather  than  any  earlier  chronicle.  Thus  the 
term  "  romantic  tragi-comedy  "  may  be  properly  used 
to  describe  all  the  work  of  the  Fourth  Period. 

Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre,  was  probably  the  earliest,  as 
it  is  certainly  the  weakest,  of  the  dramatic  romances. 
But  the  story  was  one  of  the  most  popular  in  all  fiction, 
and  Pericles  was,  no  doubt,  in  its  time  what  its  first 
title-page  claimed  for  it,  a  '  much-admired  play.'  Its 
hero  is  a  wandering  knight  of  chivalry,  buffeted  by 
storm  and  misfortune  from  one  shore  to  another.  The 
five  acts  which  tell  his  adventures  are  like  five  islands, 
widely  separated,  and  washed  by  great  surges  of  good 
and  ill  luck.  The  significance  of  his  daughter's  name, 
Marina,  is  intensified  for  us  when  we  realize  that  in 
this  play  the  sea  is  not  only  her  birthplace,  but  is  the 


198    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

symbol  throughout  of  Fortune  and  Romance.  From 
the  polluted  coast  of  Antioch,  where  Pericles  reads 
the  vile  King  his  riddle  and  escapes,  past  Tarsus, 
where  he  assists  Creon,  the  governor  of  a  helpless  city, 
to  Pentapolis,  where,  shipwrecked  and  a  stranger,  he 
wins  the  tournament  and  the  hand  of  the  Princess 
Thaisa,  the  waves  of  chance  carry  the  Prince.  They 
overwhelm  him  in  the  great  storm  which  robs  him  of 
his  wife,  and  gives  him  his  little  Marina ;  but  they  bear 
the  unconscious  Thaisa  safely  to  land,  and  in  after 
years  their  wild  riders,  the  pirates,  save  Marina  from 
death  at  the  hands  of  Creon,  and  bring  her  to  Mitylene. 
Here,  upon  his  storm-bound  ship,  the  mourning 
Pericles  recovers  his  daughter ;  and  at  Ephesus,  near 
by,  the  waves  give  back  his  wife,  through  the  kind  in- 
fluence of  Diana,  their  goddess.  We  are  never  far 
from  the  sound  of  the  shore,  and  the  lines  of  the  play 
we  best  recall  are  those  that  tell  of  "  humming  water  " 
and  "  the  rapture  of  the  sea." 

Pericles  in  its  original  scheme  was  a  play  of  adventure 
rather  than  a  dramatic  romance.  The  first  two  acts, 
in  which  Shakespeare  could  have  had  no  hand,  are 
disjointed  and  ineffective.  To  help  out  the  stage 
action,  Shakespeare's  collaborator  introduced  John 
Gower,  the  mediaeval  poet,  as  a  "  Prologue,"  to  the  acts. 
He  was  supplemented,  when  his  affectedly  antique 
diction  failed  him,  by  dumb  show,  the  last  straw 
clutched  at  by  the  desperate  playwright.  But  at  the 
beginning  of  Act  III  the  master's  music  swells  out 
with  no  uncertain  note,  and  we  are  lifted  into  the  upper 
regions  of  true  dramatic  poetry  as  Pericles  speaks  to 
the  storm  at  sea  :  — 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    199 

"  Thou  god  of  this  great  vast,  rebuke  these  surges 
Which  wash  both  heaven  and  hell ;  and  thou  that  hast 
Upon  the  winds  command,  bind  them  in  brass. 
Having  call'd  them  from  the  deep  !  .  .  . 

The  seaman's  whistle 
Is  as  a  whisper  in  the  ears  of  death, 
Unheard." 

In  the  shipwreck  which  follows,  some  phrases  of  which 
anticipate  the  similar  scene  in  The  Temjyest;  in  the 
character  of  Marina,  girlish  and  fair  as  Perdita ;  in 
the  grave  physician  Cerimon,  whose  arts  are  scarcely- 
less  potent  than  Prospero's  ;  in  the  grieving  Pericles, 
who,  like  remorse-stricken  Leontes,  recovers  first  his 
daughter,  then  his  wife,  we  see  the  first  sketches  of 
the  most  interesting  elements  in  the  dramatic  romances 
which  are  to  follow.  Throughout  all  this  Shakespeare 
is  manifest ;  and  even  in  those  scenes  which  depict 
Marina's  misery  in  Mytilene  and  subsequent  rescue, 
there  is  little  more  than  the  revolting  nature  of  the 
scenes  to  bid  us  reject  them  as  spurious,  while  Marina's 
speeches  in  them  are  certainly  true  to  the  Shake- 
spearean conception  of  her  character. 

Authorship  and  Date.  — The  play  was  entered  to  Edward  Blount 
in  the  Stationers'  Register,  May  20,  1608.  It  was  probably 
written  but  little  before.  Quartos  appeared  in  1609,  1611,  1619, 
1630,  and  1635.  It  was  not  included  among  Shakespeare's  works 
until  the  Third  Folio  (1664).  The  publishers  of  the  First  Folio 
may  have  left  it  out  on  the  ground  that  it  was  spurious,  or  be- 
cause of  some  difficulty  in  securing  the  printing  rights.  The 
former  of  these  hypotheses  is  generally  favored,  since,  as  we 
have  said,  a  study  of  the  play  reveals  the  apparent  work  of  an- 
other author,  particularly  in  Acts  I  and  II,  and  the  earlier  speech 
of  Gower,  the  Chorus  in  the  play.    In  1608  a  novel  was  pub- 


200    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

lished,  called  "The  Painful  Adventures  of  Pericles,  Prince  of 
Tyre.  Being  the  true  History  of  the  Play  of  Pericles,  as  it  was 
lately  presented  by  the  worthy  and  ancient  poet  John  Gower." 
The  author  was  George  Wilkins,  a  playwright  of  some  ability. 
He  is  generally  accepted  as  Shakespeare's  collaborator.  The 
claims  of  William  Rowley  for  a  share  in  the  scenes  of  low  life 
have  little  foundation. 

Source.  —  Shakespeare  used  Gower's  Confessio  Amantis,  and 
the  version  in  Laurence  Twine's  Pattern  of  Painful  Adventures, 
1606.     The  tale  is  also  in  the  Gesta  Bomanorum. 

Cymbeline.  —  "A  father  cruel,  and  a  step-dame  false, 
A  foolish  suitor  to  a  wedded  lady, 
That  hath  her  husband  banish' d." 
Thus  Imogen,  the  heroine  of  the  play,  and  the  daughter 
of  Cymbeline,  king  of  Britain,  describes  her  own  con- 
dition at  the  beginning  of  the  story.  The  theme  of 
the  long  and  complicated  tale  that  follows  is  her  fidelity 
under  this  affliction.  Neither  her  father's  anger,  nor  the 
stealthy  deception  of  the  false  stepmother,  nor  the  base 
lust  of  her  brutish  half-brother  Cloten,  nor  the  seductive 
tongue  of  the  villainous  Italian  lachimo,  her  husband's 
friend;  nor  even  the  knowledge  of  her  own  husband's 
sudden  suspicion  of  her,  and  his  instructions  to  have 
her  slain,  shake  in  the  least  degree  her  true  affection. 
Such  constancy  cannot  fail  of  its  reward,  and  in  the 
end  Imogen  wins  back  both  father  and  husband. 

In  such  a  story,  where  virtue's  self  is  made  to  shine, 
other  characters  must  of  necessity  suffer.  Posthumus, 
Imogen's  husband,  appears  weak  and  impulsive,  foolish 
in  making  his  wife's  constancy  a  matter  for  wagers, 
and  absurdly  quick  to  believe  the  worst  of  her.  His 
weakness  is,  however,  in  part  atoned  for  by  his  gallant 
fight  in  defense  of  his  native  Britain,  and  by  his  out- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    201 

burst  of  genuine  shame  and  remorse  when  perception 
of  his  unjust  treatment  of  Imogen  comes  to  him.  Cym- 
beline,  the  aged  king,  has  all  the  irascibility  of  Lear, 
with  none  of  his  tenderness.  The  wicked  Queen  and 
her  son  are  purely  wicked.  Only  the  faithful  servant, 
Pisanio,  a  minor  figure,  has  our  sympathy  in  this  court 
group. 

But  in  the  exiled  noble  Belarius,  and  the  two  brothers 
of  Cymbeline  whom  he  has  stolen  in  infancy  and  brought 
up  with  him  in  a  wild  life  in  the  mountains,  single- 
hearted  nobility  rules.  When  Imogen,  disguised  as  a 
page,  in  her  flight  from  the  court  to  Posthumus  comes 
upon  them,  there  is  the  instant  sympathy  of  noble 
minds,  and  there  is  a  brief  respite  from  her  misfortunes. 
They  rid  her  of  the  troublesome  Cloten,  and  their 
victory  over  Rome  brings  to  book  the  intriguing  lachimo 
and  accomplishes  her  final  recovery  of  love  and  honor. 
A  reading  of  the  play  leaves  as  the  brightest  picture 
upon  the  memory  their  joy  at  meeting  Imogen,  and 
their  grief  when  the  potion  she  drinks  robs  them  of 
her.  In  them  we  find  expressed  that  noble  simplicity 
which  romanticists  have  always  associated  with  true 
children  of  nature. 

To  Imogen,  who  has  a  far  longer  part  to  play  than 
any  other  of  Shakespeare's  heroines,  the  poet  has  also 
given  a  completer  characterization,  in  which  every 
charm  of  the  highest  type  of  woman  is  delineated.  The 
one  trait  which  a  too  censorious  audience  might  criticize, 
that  meekness  in  unbearable  affliction  which  makes 
Chaucer's  patient  Griselda  almost  incomprehensible  to 
modern  readers,  is  in  Imogen  completely  redeemed  by 
her  resolution  in  the  face  of  danger,  and  by  a  certain 


202    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

imperiousness  which  well  becomes  the  daughter  of  a 
king. 

Authorsliip.  —  Some  later  hand  probably  made  up  the  vision  of 
Posthumus  (V,  iv,  30-90),  where  a  series  of  irregular  stanzas 
of  inferior  poetical  merit  are  inserted  to  form  "  an  apparition." 

Date.  —  Simon  Forman,  the  writer  of  a  diary,  who  died  in 
1611,  describes  the  performance  of  Cymheline  at  which  he  was 
present.  The  entry  occurs  between  those  telling  of  Macbeth 
(April  20,  1610)  and  The  Winter's  Tale  (May  15,  1611).  The 
tests  of  verse  assign  it  also  to  this  period.  The  first  print  was 
that  of  the  First  Folio,  1623. 

Source.  —  From  Holinshed  Shakespeare  learned  the  only  actual 
historical  fact  in  the  play,  that  one  Cunobelinus  was  an  ancient 
king  of  Britain.  Cymbeline's  two  sons  are  likewise  from  Hol- 
inshed, as  is  the  rout  of  an  army  by  a  countryman  and  his  two 
sons ;  but  the  two  stories  are  separate.  The  ninth  novel  of  the 
second  day  of  the  Decameron  of  Boccaccio  tells  a  story  much 
resembling  the  part  of  the  play  which  concerns  Posthumus. 
The  play  called  The  Bare  Triumphs  of  Love  and  Fortune  (1589) 
contains  certain  characters  not  unlike  Imogen,  Posthumus, 
Belarius,  and  Cloten.  Fidelia,  Imogen's  name  in  disguise,  is 
the  heroine's  name.    But  direct  borrowing  cannot  be  proved. 

The  Winter's  Tale.  —  Nowhere  is  Shakespeare  more 
lavish  of  his  powers  of  characterization  and  of  poetic 
treatment  of  life  than  in  this  play.  He  found  for  his 
plot  a  popular  romance  of  the  time,  in  which  a  true 
queen,  wrongly  accused  of  infidelity  with  her  husband's 
friend,  dies  of  grief  at  the  death  of  her  son,  while  her 
infant  daughter,  abandoned  to  the  seas  in  a  boat, 
grows  up  among  shepherds  to  marry  the  son  of  the 
king  of  whom  her  father  had  been  jealous.  Disregard- 
ing the  essentially  undramatic  nature  of  the  story, 
as  well  as  its  improbabilities,  he  achieved  a  signal  tri- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    203 

umph  of  his  art  in  the  creation  of  his  two  heroines, 
and  in  his  conception  of  the  pastoral  scenes,  so  fresh, 
joyous,  and  absolutely  free  from  the  artificiality  of 
convention. 

In  the  deeply  wronged  queen  he  drew  the  supreme 
portrait  of  woman's  fortitude.  Hermione  is  brave,  not 
by  nature,  but  inspired  by  high  resolve  for  her  honor 
and  for  her  children.  Nobly  indignant  at  the  slanders 
uttered  against  her,  her  wifely  love  forgives  the 
slanderer  in  pity  for  the  blindness  of  unreason  which  has 
caused  his  action.  Shakespeare's  dramatic  instinct 
made  him  alter  Hermione' s  death  in  the  earlier  story 
to  life  in  secret,  with  poetic  justice  in  store.  Artificial 
as  the  long  period  of  waiting  seems,  before  the  final 
reconciliation  takes  place,  it  is  forgotten  in  the  mag- 
nificent appeal  of  the  mother's  love  when  the  lost 
daughter  kneels  in  joy  before  her. 

In  Perdita,  Shakespeare,  with  incredible  skill, 
depicted  the  true  daughter  of  such  a  mother.  Al- 
though her  nature  at  first  seems  all  innocence,  beauty, 
youth,  and  joy,  yet  when  trial  comes  to  her  in  the 
knowledge  that  she,  a  shepherdess,  has  loved  a  king's 
son,  and  that  his  father  has  discovered  it,  her  courage 
rises  with  the  danger,  and  her  words  echo  her  mother's 
resolution :  — 

"  I  think  affliction  may  subdue  the  cheek, 
But  not  take  in  the  mind." 

In  the  pastoral  scenes,  the  poet  gives  us  an  English 
sheepshearing,  with  its  merrymaking,  a  pair  of  honest 
English  country  fellows  in  the  old  shepherd  and  his  son, 
the  Clown,  and  the  greatest  of  all  beloved  vagabonds 


204    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

in  the  rogue  Autolycus,  whose  vices,  like  Falstaff's, 
are  more  lovable  than  other  people's  virtues.  Fortune, 
which  will  not  suffer  him  to  be  honest,  makes  his 
thieveries,  in  her  extremity  of  whim,  to  be  but  bene- 
fits for  others. 

Of  the  other  characters.  Prince  Florizel,  Perdita's 
lover,  is  that  rarest  of  all  dramatic  heroes,  a  young 
prince  with  real  nobility  of  soul.  Lord  CamiUo  and 
Lady  Paulina  are  well-drawn  types  of  loyalty  and  de- 
votion. Leontes  alone,  the  jealous  husband,  is  unrea- 
soning in  the  violence  of  his  jealousy.  As  the  study 
of  a  mind  overborne  by  an  obsession,  it  is  a  strong 
yet  repulsive  picture. 

Date.  —  Simon  Forman  narrates  in  his  diary  how  he  saw  the 
play  at  the  Globe  Theater,  May  15,  1611.  It  was  probably 
written  about  this  time.  Jonson's  Masque  of  Oberon,  produced 
January  1,  1611,  contains  an  antimasque  of  satyrs  which  may 
bear  some  relation  to  the  similar  dance  in  IV,  iv,  331  ff.  The 
First  Folio  contains  the  earliest  print  of  the  play. 

Source. — The  romance,  to  which  reference  has  been  made 
above,  as  the  source  of  The  Winter's  Tale,  was  Robert  Greene's 
Pandosto  :  The  Triumph  of  Time,  sometimes  called  by  its  later 
title,  The  History  of  Dorastus  and  Favonia.  Fourteen  editions 
followed  one  another  from  its  appearance  in  1588.  Greene 
made  the  jealous  Pandosto  king  in  Bohemia,  and  Egistus  (Pol- 
ixenes  in  the  play)  king  of  Sicily.  In  The  Winter^s  Tale  two 
kingdoms  are  interchanged.  Nevertheless  the  "  seacoast  of 
Bohemia,"  so  often  ridiculed  as  Shakespeare's  stage  direction, 
is  found  in  Greene's  story.  Three  alterations  by  Shakespeare  are 
of  vital  importance  in  improving  the  plot :  the  slandered  queen 
is  kept  alive,  instead  of  dying  in  grief  for  her  son's  dearth,  to  be 
restored  again  in  the  famous  but  theatrical  statue  scene ;  Au- 
tolycus is  created  and  is  given,  with  Camillo,  an  important  share 
in  the  restoration  of  Perdita ;  and  the  complications  of  Doras- 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    205 

tus's  (FlorizePs)  destiny  as  the  prospective  husband  of  a  princess 
of  Denmark,  and  Pandosto's  (Leontes's)  falling  in  love  with  his 
own  daughter  and  his  suicide  on  learning  of  her  true  birth,  are 
wisely  omitted.  The  characters  of  Paulina,  the  Clown,  and 
some  minor  persons  are  Shakespeare's  own  invention. 

According  to  Professor  Neilson,  Autolycus  and  his  song  in  IV 
iii,  1  ff.,  may  have  been  partly  based  on  the  character  of  Tom 
Beggar  in  Robert  Wilson's  Three  Ladies  of  London  (1684). 

The  Tempest,  probably  the  last  complete  drama  from 
Shakespeare's  pen,  differs  from  the  other  "  romances " 
in  possessing  a  singular  unity.  It  comes,  indeed 
closer  than  any  play,  save  the  Comedy  of  Errors,  to 
fulfilling  the  demands  of  unity  of  action,  time,  and 
place.  This  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the  poet  is 
here  making  up  his  own  plot,  not,  as  in  other  cases, 
dramatizing  a  novel  of  extended  adventure. 

The  central  theme  of  The  Tempest  is,  like  that  of  the 
other  romances,  restoration  of  those  exiled  and  recon- 
ciliation of  those  at  enmity ;  but  the  treatment  of  the 
story  could  not  be  more  different.  Where  the  chance  of 
fortune  has  hitherto  brought  about  the  happy  ending,  ^ 
here  magic  and  the  supernatural  in  control  of  man  are  ^ 
the  means  employed.  Those  who  had  plotted  or  con- 
nived at  the  expulsion  of  Prospero,  Duke  of  Milan, 
and  his  being  set  adrift  in  an  open  boat,  with  his 
infant  daughter  and  his  books  for  company,  are 
wrecked  through  his  art  upon  the  island  of  which  he 
has  become  the  master.  Ariel,  the  spirit  who  serves 
Prospero,  a  mysterious,  ever  changing  form,  now  fire, 
now  a  Kymph,  now  an  invisible  musician,  now  a 
Harpy,  striking  guilt  into  the  conscience  (and  yet  ap- 
parently not  interested  in  either   vice   or  virtue,  but 


206    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

longing  only  for  free  idleness),  guides  all  to  Prosperous 
cave,  and  receives  freedom  for  his  toil.  His  spirit 
pervades  every  scene,  whether  we  view  the  king's  son 
Ferdinand  loving  innocent  Miranda,  or  the  silent  king 
mourning  his  son's  loss,  or  the  guilty  conspirators 
plotting  the  king's  death,  or  the  drunken  steward  and 
jester  plotting  with  the  servant  monster  Caliban  the 
overthrow  of  Prospero.  All  of  them  are  led,  by  the 
wisdom  of  Prospero  acting  through  Ariel,  away  from 
their  own  wrong  impulses,  and  into  reconcilement  and 
peace.  How  much  of  TIiq  Tempest  Shakespeare  meant 
as  a  symbol  can  never  be  told  ;  but  here,  perhaps,  as 
much  as  anywhere  the  temptation  to  read  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  poet  into  the  story  of  the  dramatist 
comes  strongly  upon  the  reader. 

There  are  two  speeches  of  Prospero,  in  particular, 
where  the  reader  is  inclined  to  believe  he  is  listening 
to  Shakespeare's  own  voice.  In  one,  Prospero  puts 
a  sudden  end  to  his  pageant  of  the  spirits,  and  com- 
pares life  itself  to  the  transitory  play.  In  the  other, 
Prospero  bids  farewell  to  his  magic  art.  These  are 
often  interpreted  as  Shakespeare's  own  farewell  to  the 
stage  and  to  his  art,  —  with  what  justification  every 
reader  must  decide  for  himself. 

In  this  last  play  there  is,  it  should  be  said,  not 
the  slightest  hint  of  a  weakening  of  the  poetic  or  the 
dramatic  faculty.  The  falling  in  love  of  Miranda,  the 
wonderful  and  wondering  child  of  purity  and  nature ; 
the  tempting  of  Sebastian  by  the  crafty  Antonio;  and 
the  creation  of  Caliban,  half-man,  half-devil,  with  his 
elemental  knowledge  of  nature,  and  his  dull  cunning, 
and  his  stunted  faculties,  —  all  these  are  the  work  of 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    207 

a  genius  still  in  the  full  pride  of  power.  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  work  ends  suddenly,  "  like  a  bright  exhala- 
tion in  the  evening." 

Date.  —  Edmund  Malone's  word,  unsupported  by  other  evi- 
dence, puts  the  play  as  already  in  existence  in  the  autumn  of 
1611.  The  play  certainly  is  later  than  the  wreck  of  Somers's 
ship,  in  1609.  It  was  acted  during  the  marriage  festivities  of 
the  Princess  Elizabeth  in  1613,  when  other  plays  were  revived. 

Sources.  —  Two  accounts  by  Sylvester  Jourdan  and  William 
Strachey  told,  soon  after  the  event,  of  the  casting  away  upon 
the  Bermuda  Islands  of  a  ship  belonging  to  the  Virginia  expe- 
dition of  Somers  in  609.  From  these  Shakespeare  drew  for 
many  details.  His  island,  however,  is  clearly  not  Bermuda, 
nor,  indeed,  any  known  land.  Other  details  have  been  traced 
from  various  sources.  Ariel  is  a  name  of  a  spirit  in  mediaeval 
literature  of  cabalistic  secrets.  Montaigne's  Essays,  translated 
by  Florio  (1603),  furnished  the  hint  of  Gonzalo's  imaginary 
commonwealth  (II,  i,  147  ff.).  Setebos  has  been  found  as  a 
devil-god  of  the  Patagonians  in  Eden's  History  of  Travaile 
(1577).  The  rest  of  the  story,  which  is  nine-tenths  of  the 
whole,  is  probably  Shakespeare's  own,  though  the  central  theme 
of  an  exiled  prince,  whose  daughter  marries  his  enemy,  who  has 
an  attendant  spirit,  and  who  through  magic  compels  the  cap- 
tive prince  to  carry  logs,  may  come  from  some  old  folk  tale ; 
since  a  German  play,  Die  Schone  Sidea,  by  Jakob  Ayrer  of 
Nuremberg  (died  1605),  possesses  all  these  details.  The  rela- 
tions, if  any,  between  the  two  plays  are  remote. 

The  Life  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  the  last  of  the  historical 
plays,  in  date  of  composition  as  in  the  history  it  pic- 
tures, suffers  from,  the  very  fact  that  it  boasts  in  its 
second  title,  All  is  True.  The  play  might  have  been 
built  around  any  one  of  the  half-dozen  persons  which 
in  turn  claim  our  chief  interest,  —  Buckingham,  Queen 
Katherine,  Anne  Bullen,  the  King,  Wolsey,  or  Gran- 


208    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

mer ;  but  fidelity  to  history,  while  it  did  not  hinder 
some  slight  alteration  of  incident  and  time,  required 
that  each  of  these  should  in  turn  be  distinguished,  if  a 
complete  picture  of  the  times  of  Henry  VIII  were  to 
be  given.  The  result  was  a  complete  abandonment  of 
anything  like  unity  of  theme. 

It  is,  of  course,  a  disappointment  to  one  who  has 
just  read  /  Henry  IV.  On  the  other  hand,  this  play 
may  be  regarded  as  a  kind  of  pageant,  as  the  word  is 
used  nowadays  in  England  and  America.  It  presents, 
in  the  manner  of  a  modern  pageant,  a  series  of  brilliant 
scenes  telling  of  Buckingham's  fall,  of  Wolsey's  triumph 
and  ruin,  of  Katherine's  trial  and  death,  of  Anne 
BuUen's  coronation,  and  of  Cranmer's  advancement, 
joined  together  by  the  well-drawn  character  of  the 
King,  powerful,  masterful,  selfish,  and  vindictive,  but 
not  without  a  suggestion  of  better  qualities.  The 
gayety  of  the  Masque,  in  the  first  act,  where  King 
Henry  first  meets  Anne  Bullen,  is  also  in  perfect  har- 
mony with  the  modern  pageant,  which  always  employs 
music  and  dancing  as  aids  to  the  picture. 

In  Queen  Katherine  we  have  a  suffering  and  wronged 
woman,  gifted  with  queenly  grace  and  dignity,  and 
with  strong  sympathies  and  a  keen  sense  of  justice. 
From  her  first  entrance,  when  she  ventures.  Esther- 
like, into  the  presence  of  the  king  to  intercede  for  an 
oppressed  people,  through  all  her  vain  struggle  against 
the  King's  wayward  inclination  and  the  Cardinal's 
wiles,  up  to  the  very  moment  when  she  is  stricken 
with  mortal  illness,  she  holds  our  sympathy.  If  in 
her  great  trial  scene  she  is  weaker  and  more  impulsive 
than   Hermione  in  hers,   yet  the   circumstances  are 


THE  PLAYS  OF  THE  FOURTH  PERIOD    209 

different ;  she  is  not  keyed  up  to  so  high  an  endeavor 
as  that  lady,  nor  in  so  much  danger  for  herself  or  her 
children. 

Authorship.  —  Differences  in  style  and  meter,  and  the  frag- 
mentary quality  of  the  whole  play  have  long  confirmed  the 
theory  that  Shakespeare  in  Henry  VIII  engaged  in  a  very 
loose  sort  of  collaboration.  Only  the  Buckingham  scene  (I,  i,), 
the  scenes  of  Katherine's  entrance  and  trial  (I,  ii,  II,  iv),  a 
brief  scene  of  Anne  Bullen  (II,  iii) ,  and  the  first  half  of  the 
scene  in  which  Wolsey's  schemes  are  exposed  and  Henry  alien- 
ated from  him  (III,  i,  1-203)  are  confidently  ascribed  to  Shake- 
speare. The  rest  of  the  play  fits  best  the  style  and  metrical 
habit  of  John  Fletcher,  at  this  time  one  of  the  most  popular 
dramatists  of  London. 

Date.  —  The  Globe  Theater  was  burned  on  June  29,  1613, 
when  a  play  called  Henry  VIII  or  All  is  True  was  being  per- 
formed. So  far  as  stylistic  tests  can  decide,  this  was  not  long 
after  the  composition  of  the  play.  Sir  Henry  Wotton,  the  anti- 
quarian, writing  from  hearsay  knowledge,  says  that  the  play 
being  acted  at  the  time  of  the  fire  was  "  a  new  play  called  All 
is  True.''''  Shakespeare's  scenes  in  this  drama  may  thus  have 
been  his  last  dramatic  work.  A  praise  of  King  James  in  the 
last  scene  was  probably  written  not  later  than  the  rest  of  the 
play,  and  thus  insures  a  date  later  than  1603.  The  earliest  print 
of  the  play  was  the  First  Folio,  1623. 

Source.  —  Holinshed  was  the  chief  source.  Halle  furnished 
certain  details.  Foxe's  Book  of  Martyrs  tells  the  Cranmer 
story. 


CHAPTEE  XIV 

FAMOUS     MISTAKES     AND      DELUSIONS      ABOUT     SHAKE- 
SPEARE 

The  mystery  which  enwraps  so  much  of  Shake- 
speare^s  life,  combined  with  the  interest  which  natu- 
rally centers  around  a  great  genius,  is  ideally  calculated 
to  stimulate  human  imagination  to  fantastic  guess- 
work. It  is  probably  for  this  reason  that  a  number 
of  famous  delusions  about  Shakespeare  have  at  different 
times  arisen.  Some  of  these  are  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  deserve  attention.  Three  widely  different 
types  of  mistakes  can  be  observed. 

The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha.  — The  most  excusable  of 
these  delusions  was  the  belief  that  Shakespeare  wrote 
a  large  number  of  plays  which  are  now  known  to  be 
the  work  of  other  men.  Some  of  these  plays  were 
printed,  either  during  the  poet's  life  or  after  his  death, 
with  "  William  Shakespeare  "  or  "  W.  S."  on  the  title- 
page.  It  is  now  practically  certain  that  the  full  name 
was  a  printer's  forgery,  and  that  the  letters  W.  S.  were 
either  designed  to  deceive  or  else  the  initials  of  some 
contemporary  dramatist  (such  as  Wentworth  Smith,  for 
example).  Six  of  these  spurious  dramas  were  included 
in  the  Third  Folio  of  Shakespeare's  complete  works. 
Since  this  came  out  forty  years  after  the  First  Folio, 
when  men  who  had  known  Shakespeare  personally 
210 


DELUSIONS  ABOUT  SHAKESPEARE        211 

were  dead,  we  certainly  cannot  believe  that  its  editor 
had  better  information  than  those  of  the  First 
Folio,  who  were  the  poet's  personal  friends,  and  who 
did  not  include  these  plays.  The  spurious  dramas 
printed  in  the  Third  Folio  were :  Tlie  London  Prodigal, 
The  History  of  the  Life  and  Death  of  Thomas  Lord 
Cromwell,  The  History  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  TJie  Pur- 
itan Widow,  Yorkshire  Tragedy,  and  TJie  Tragedy  of 
Locrine. 

Among  the  other  plays  imputed  to  Shakespeare  at 
various  times  are  :  Fair  Em,  The  Merry  Devil  of  Ed- 
monton, Arden  of  Feversham,  The  Two  Nohle  Kinsmen, 
Edivard  Third,  and  Sir  Thomas  More.  Some  good 
critics,  chiefly  literary  men,  not  scholars,  still  believe 
that  Shakespeare  wrote  parts  of  the  last  three  ;  but  it 
is  practically  certain  that  he  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  others,  and  his  part  in  all  these  disputed  plays  is 
extremely  doubtful. 

Shakespearean  Forgeries.  —  Men  who  assigned  the 
above  spurious  plays  to  Shakespeare  made  an  honest 
error  of  judgment,  but  other  men  have  committed  de- 
liberate forgeries  in  regard  to  him.  At  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  W.  H.  Ireland  forged  papers  which 
he  attempted  to  impose  on  the  public  as  recently  dis- 
covered Mss.  of  the  ^  Swan  of  Avon.'  One  of  these 
finds,  a  play  called  Vortigern,  was  actually  acted  by  a 
prominent  company.  But  the  unShakespearean  char- 
acter of  these  ^  great  discoveries '  was  soon  perceived, 
and  Ireland  at  length  confessed. 

Another  famous  fraud  of  a  wholly  different  kind 
was  that  of  J.  P.  Collier.  The  great  services  which  this 
man  has  rendered  to  the  world  of  scholarship  make 


212    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

all  men  reluctant  to  pass  too  severe  censure  on  his 
conduct ;  but  it  is  only  fair  that  the  public  should  be 
warned  against  deception.  He  pretended  to  have  found 
a  folio  copy  of  the  plays  corrected  and  revised  on  the 
margin  in  the  handwriting  of  a  contemporary  of 
Shakespeare.  Some  of  these  revisions  were  actual  im- 
provements on  the  carelessly  printed  text;  but  it  is 
now  known  that  they  were  forgeries.  Similar  changes 
were  made  by  him  in  other  important  documents,  and 
were  for  some  time  accepted  as  genuine. 

The  Bacon  Controversy.  —  During  the  latter  part  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  the  contention  was  started  that 
Shakespeare  was  merely  an  obscure  actor  who  never 
wrote  a  line,  and  that  the  Shakespearean  plays  were 
actually  written  by  his  great  contemporary,  Francis 
Bacon,  who  was  pleased  to  let  these  products  of  his 
own  genius  appear  under  the  name  of  another  man. 
This  delusion  is  usually  considered  as  beginning  with 
an  article  by  Miss  Delia  Bacon  in  Putnam^ s  Monthly 
(January,  1856),  although  the  idea  had  been  twice 
suggested  during  the  eight  years  preceding. 

The  Baconian  arguments  fall  into  four  groups.  First, 
they  argue  that  there  is  no  proof  to  establish  the  iden- 
tity of  Shakespeare,  the  actor,  with  the  author  of  the 
plays.  This  is  untrue.  We  have  more  than  one  ref- 
erence by  his  contemporaries,  identifying  the  actor 
with  the  poet,  some  so  strong  that  the  Baconians  them- 
selves can  explain  them  away  only  by  assuming  that 
the  writer  is  speaking  in  irony  or  that  he  willfully  de- 
ceives the  public.  By  assumptions  like  that,  any  one 
could  prove  anything. 

The  second  point  of  the  Baconians  is  that  a  man  of 


DELUSIONS  ABOUT  SHAKESPEARE       213 

Shakespeare's  limited  education  could  not  have  written 
plays  replete  with  so  many  kinds  of  learning.  This 
argument  is  weak  at  both  ends.  It  assumes  as  true 
that  Shakespeare  had  a  limited  education  and  that  his 
plays  are  full  of  knowledge  learned  from  books  rather 
than  from  life.  The  first  of  these  points  rests  on 
vague  tradition  only,  and  the  second  is  still  a  debat- 
able question.  But  even  if  we  admit  these  two  points, 
what  then  ?  Shakespeare  was  twenty-nine  years  old 
and  had  probably  lived  in  London  for  five  or  six  years 
when  the  first  book  from  his  hand  appeared  in  its  pres- 
ent form.  Any  man  capable  of  writing  Hamlet  could 
educate  himself  during  several  years  in  the  heart  of  a 
great  city. 

Thirdly,  a  certain  lady  found  in  Bacon's  writings  a 
large  number  of  expressions  which  seemed  to  her  to 
resemble  similar  phrases  in  Shakespeare.  Except  to 
the  mind  of  an  ardent  Baconian  many  of  these  show 
no  likeness  whatever.  Most  of  those  which  do  show 
any  likeness  were  proverbial  or  stock  expressions 
which  can  be  found  in  other  writers. 

Lastly,  various  Baconians  have  repeatedly  asserted 
that  they  had  found  in  the  First  Folio  acrostic  signa- 
tures of  Bacon's  name ;  that  one  could  spell  Bacon  or 
Francis  Bacon  by  picking  out  letters  in  the  text  ac- 
cording to  certain  rules.  But  unfortunately  either 
these  acrostics  do  not  work  out,  or  else  the  rules  are 
so  loose  that  similar  acrostics  can  be  found  anywhere, 
in  modern  books  or  pamphlets,  and  even  on  the  grave- 
stones of  our  ancestors.  Many  of  the  more  intelligent 
Baconians  themselves  have  no  faith  in  this  last  form 
of  evidence. 


214    AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  SHAKESPEARE 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  certain  very  weighty 
objections  to  Bacon  as  author  of  the  plays.  In  the 
first  place,  it  is  a  miracle  that  one  man  should  produce 
either  the  works  of  Bacon  or  Shakespeare  alone  ;  it  is 
a  miracle  past  all  belief  that  the  same  man  in  one  life- 
time should  have  written  both.  In  the  second  place, 
the  little  verse  which  Bacon  is  known  to  have  written 
shows  clearly  how  limited  he  was  as  a  poet,  no  matter 
how  great  in  other  directions.  Moreover,  his  prose, 
though  splendid  in  its  kind,  is  wholly  unlike  the  prose 
of  Shakespeare.  Finally,  Bacon's  contemptuous  atti- 
tude toward  woman  and  marriage  was  diametrically 
opposed  to  that  found  in  Shakespeare.  To  imagine 
that  the  same  man  wrote  both  sets  of  writings  is  to 
assume  that  he  was  one  man  one  day  and  another  the 
next. 

The  advocates  of  this  strange  theory  vary  greatly 
in  fairmindedness  and  ability,  and  it  is  not  just  to 
judge  them  all  by  the  mad  extremes  of  some ;  but, 
nevertheless,  their  writings,  taken  as  a  whole,  form  one 
of  the  strangest  medleys  of  garbled  facts  and  fallacious 
reasoning  which  has  ever  imposed  on  an  honest  and 
intelligent  but  uninformed  public. 

On  the  Shakespeare  Apocrypha^  see  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke's 
edition  of  fourteen  spurious  plays,  under  this  title,  Oxford,  Uni- 
versity Press,  1908.  On  the  forgeries  and  other  questions,  Ap- 
pendix I  of  Mr.  Lee's  Life  is  the  readiest  place  of  reference. 


INDEX 


Aaron,  141. 

Abraham  and  Isaac,  25. 

Adoration  of  the  Wise  Men,  25. 

^schylus,  20 

^sop,  182. 

Albright,  V.  E.,  44,  50. 

All  is  True,  207,  209. 

AUeyn,  E.,  48,  49. 

Allott,  R.,  124. 

All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  110, 

121,  174-176. 
Amphitruo,  110,  148. 
Amyot,  J.,  108. 
Anders,  H.  R.  D.,  112. 
Angelo,  176. 
Antonio,  160. 

Antonius,  Life  of  M.,  192,  196. 
Antony,  178. 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  47,  76,  83, 

102,  109,  121,  190-192,  193. 
Apemantus,  194. 
Apocrypha,     Shakespeare,     120, 

210. 
Apollonius  and  Silla,  171. 
Arcadia,  111,  187. 
Arden  of  Feversham,  211. 
Aren  en  Titus,  142. 
Ariel,  206. 
Ariosto,  167. 
Aristophanes,  20. 
Aristotle,  30. 
Arthur,  Prince,  137. 
Ashbies,  4,  16.     ^ 
Aspley,  W.  A.,  121,  124. 
As  You  Like  It,  102,  110,  121, 

167-169,  172. 
Ayrer,  J.,  207. 

Bacon  controversy,  212-214. 
Baker,  G.  P.,  104. 
Bale,  J.,  138. 


Bandello,  109, 110. 144, 167, 171. 

Bankside,  37. 

Barksted,  76,  177. 

Barnard,  Lady,  19, 

Bear-rings  as  stages,  37. 

Beatrice,  166. 

Beaumont,  F.,  57,  196. 

Belleforest,  171,  182. 

Bellott,  Stephen,  13,  14. 

Benedick,  166. 

Benedicke  and  Betteris,  167. 

Bermuda,  207. 

Bertram,  174,  176. 

Besant,  Sir  W.,  59. 

Blackfriars  Theater,  14,  45-46, 

49,  57,  68. 
Blount,  E.,  121-123,  199. 
Boccaccio,  G.,  110,  176,  202. 
Boisteau,  144. 
Bolingbroke,  138. 
Book  of  Martyrs,  207. 
Booke  of  Plaies,  189. 
Boswell,  J.,  129. 
Boy-actors,  49. 
Bradley,  A.  C.,  195. 
Brodmeier,  60. 
Brome  play,  26. 
Brooke,  A.,  146. 
Brooke,  C.  F.  T.,  214. 
Brutus,  178,  179. 
Buckingham,  207. 
Building  of  the  Arke,  25. 
Bullen  (Boleyn),  Anne,  207. 
Burbage,  James,  37. 
Burbage,  R.,  12,  14,  17,  19,  37, 

38,  46,  48,  49. 
Busby,  J.,  118. 
Butler,  N.,  120. 


CoBsar,  Life  of  J.,  193 ;   see  also 
Julius. 


215 


216 


INDEX 


Caliban,  206. 

Camden,  R.,  11. 

CapeU,  E.,  129. 

Cassius,  178. 

Caxton,  W.,  174. 

Chamberlain's     Company,     see 

Lord. 
Chambers,  E.  K.,  34. 
Character-study,  90. 
Charlecote,  7. 
Chaucer,  G.,  67,  109,  151,  152, 

174,  201. 
Chester  Plays,  24,  25. 
Chettle,  H.,  9,  12,  174. 
Chetwind,  P.,  125. 
Children  of  Paul's,  46. 
Children  of  the  Chapel,  46. 
Children's  companies,  48. 
Chronicle  of  Holinshed,  107-108, 

187.     See  also  Holinshed. 
Church,  Origin  of  drama  in,  20- 

23 
Cintiiio,  G.,  109,  177,  184. 
Citizens  of  London,  55. 
City  of  London,  53. 
Clark,  A.,  4  n. 

Clark  and  Wright,  129,  189. 
Classical  drama,  29-31. 
Claudio,  165,  177. 
Cloten,  200. 
Cock-pit,  46. 
Colin  Clovt,  etc.,  10. 
Collier,  J.  P.,  112,  211. 
Comedy  of  Errors,    10,   77,   83, 

110,  121,  147-148. 
Condell,  Henry,  12,  19,  122. 
Confessio  Amantis,  109,  200. 
Constance,  137. 

Contention,  First,  111,  134,  135. 
Contention,    Second,    111,     134, 

135.  See    Richard,     True 

Tragedy  of. 
Contention,  Whole,  111,  120,  134. 
Cordelia,  185. 

CoHolanus,  109,  121,  192-193. 
Coryat,  T.,  39. 


Cotes,  R.,  124. 
Cotes,  T.,  124. 
Cranmer,  208. 
Creizenach,  34,  50. 
Cromwell,  Thos.,  Lord,  125,  211. 
CurtainTheater,  37. 
Cycles  of  miracle  plays,  24. 
Cymbeline,  41,  71,  83,  103,  108, 
112,  121,  200-202. 

Danter,  J.,  118. 

Dates  of  plays,  83. 

Davies,  Archdeacon,  7. 

De  Clerico  et  Puella,  28. 

Decameron,  110,  176,  202.  i 

Deer-stealing,  tradition  of,  7. 

Dekker,  T.,  174. 

Delius,  N.,  129. 

Deluge,  The,  25. 

Desdemona,  184. 

Diana  Enamorada,  110, 149,  151. 

Dogberry,  54,  166. 

Dorastu^  and  Fawnia,  204. 

Dowden,  E.,  84. 

Drama  before  Shakespeare,  20. 

Dramatic  technique,  94-100. 

Drayton,  M.,  11. 

Droeshout,  M.,  18. 

Dromio,  147. 

Dux  Moraud,  28. 

Easter  drama,  22. 

Eden,  207. 

Editing,  Problems  of,  12ft-127. 

Edmund,  186. 

Edward  II,  32,  140. 

Edward  III,  211. 

Edward  IV,  134. 

Ely  Palace  portrait,  18. 

End-stopped  lines,  79-80. 

Endymion,  33. 

Essex,  Earl  of,  78,  169. 

Euphues,  33,  140. 

Euripides,  20.  | 

Everyman,  26,  34.  j 

Every  Man  in  his  Humour,  12. 


INDEX 


217 


Every  Man  ovi  of  his  Humour, 

158,  179. 
External  evidence,  75-77. 

Faerie  Queene,  152,  187. 

Fair  Em,  211. 

Falstaff,  Sir  John,   7,    156-159, 

164. 
Faulconbridge,  137. 
Faustus,  32. 

Felix  and  PhiMomena,  149. 
Female  parts,  48. 
Feminine  endings,  80. 
Field,  Henry,  16. 
Field,  Richard,  113. 
FiorentinciO.,  HO,  161. 
First  FoUo,  11,  30,  75,  114,  119, 

120-124,  136,  137,  etc. 
Fisher,  T.,  120. 
Fleay,  F.  L.,  50,  84. 
Fletcher,  J.,  2,  196,  197,  209. 
Florio,  G.,  207. 
Flower  portrait,  18. 
FlueUen,  158. 
FoKos,      Second,      Third,     and 

Fourth,  124-125. 
Forgeries,  Shakespeare,  211. 
Forman,  Dr.  S.,  189,  202,  204. 
Fortune  Theater,  38-40. 
Four  periods,  101-104. 
Foxe,  R.,  209. 
Fuller,  H.  De  W.,  142. 
Fuller,  T.,  56. 
Furness,  H.  H.,  127,  130. 

Gamelyn,  Tale  of,  169. 
Gammer  Gurton's  Needle,  29. 
Garnett,  H.,  189. 
Gascoigne,  G.,  163. 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  187. 
German  and  Dutch  plays  like 

Shakespeare's,  112. 
Gesta  Romanorum,  200. 
Glendower,  155. 
Globe  Theater,    1,  38,    39,    67, 

68. 


Gloucester,  186. 

Gorboduc,  29. 

Gosson,  S.,  161.. 

Gower,  J.,  109,  200. 

Greek  drama,  30. 

Greene,  R.,  8,  9,  110,  115,  134, 

135,  204. 
Greene,  T.,  17,  31. 
Grey,  W.,  50,  120. 
Groatsworth  of  Witte,  etc.,  9. 
Gunpowder  Plot,  190. 

Hal,  Prince,  155. 
Hall,  Dr.  J.,  17. 
Halliwell-Phillipps,    J.    O.,    19, 

129. 
Hamlet,  12,  32,  33,  34,  41,  83, 

93-94,    100,    102,    111,    112, 

116,  117,  119,  121,  128,  142, 

177,  180-182. 
Hanmer,  T.,  128. 
Harsnett,  186. 
Hart,  Joan,  19. 
Hathaway,  Anne,  6,  6. 
Hawkuas,  A.,  124. 
Hazlitt,  W.  C.,  112. 
Heccatommithi,    Gli,    109,    179, 

184. 
Hector,  173. 
Hegge  plays,  24. 
Helena,  174. 
Heminge  or  Hemings,  J.,  12,  19, 

122. 
Henley  Street  House,  19. 
/  Henry  IV,  6,  10,  33,  41,  83,  99, 

101,  111,  117,  119,  121,  154- 

167,  164,  165,  208. 
II  Henry  IV,  121,  126,  167-168. 
Henry  V,  78,  83,  101,  111,  117, 

119,  120,  168-169,  165. 
Henry  V,  Famous  Victories  of, 

111. 
/  Henry  VI,  111,  lSS-134. 

II  Henry  VI,  111,  117,  134-136. 

III  Henry  VI,  8,  83,  98,  121, 
134-136. 


218 


INDEX 


Hmry  VIII,  31,  84,  103,  112, 

121,  197,  207-209. 
Henslowe,  P.,  37,  45,  48. 
Hemlowe's  Diary,  50,  182. 
Heptameron  of  CivU  Discourses, 

177. 
Hennia,  150. 
Hermione,  203. 
Hero,  166. 
Herod,  24. 
Heywood,  J.,  28. 
Histoires  Tragigues,  182. 
Historia  Danica,  181. 
Histories,  97-98. 
Holinshed,    107-108,    134,    136, 

140,  156,  159,  180,  190,  202, 

209. 
HoUand  (author),  184. 
Horace,  11. 
Hotspur,  165. 
Hubert,  137. 

Humphrey  of  Gloucester,  134. 
Hunsdon,  Lord,  48,  144. 

lachimo,  202. 
lago,  183. 

Iambic  pentameter,  61. 
Imogen,  200-202. 
Ingannati,  GV,  171. 
Ingram,  81  n. 
Inn-yards  as  theaters,  36. 
Interludes,  27-29,  48. 
Internal  evidence,  77-82. 
Ireland,  W.  H.,  211. 
Isabella,  176. 
Italian  novelle,  109-110. 
Italy,  Influence  of,  on  masque, 
34. 

Jaggard,  I.,  121,  124. 

Jaggard,  W.,  70,  113,  120-121, 

124. 
James  I,  48,  209. 
Jaques,  169. 
Jessica,  160. 
Jew  of  Malta,  132. 


Joan  of  Arc,  133. 

John  of  Gaunt,  138,  140. 

John,  Troublesome Reigne  o/,  111, 

137-138. 
Johnson,  A.,  120. 
Johnson,  S.,  129. 
Jonson,  Ben,  11,  12,  31,  34,  50, 

56,  158,  174,  179,  204. 
Jourdan,  S.,  207. 
Julia,  149. 
Julius  CcBsar,  44,  83,  100,  102, 

109,  121,  122,  126,  172,  177- 

180,  184,  190,  193. 

Katherine,  162,  208. 

Kemp,  W.,  12. 

Kind-Harts  Dreame,  9. 

King  Johan,  27,  138. 

King  John,  11,  77,  83,  111,  136, 

136-138. 
King  Lear,  77,  83,  100,  102,  108, 

117,  126,  185-187,  196. 
King  Leir,  etc..  Ill,  187. 
Knight's  Tale,  151. 
Kyd,  T.,  31,  32,  142,  182. 

Lady  Macbeth,  188. 

Lambert,  D.,  84. 

Lee,  S.,  19,  72,  214. 

Legend  of  Good  Women,  162.   , 

Leontes,  199,  204. 

Leopold  Shakespeare,  129.    . 

Locrine,  Tragedy  of,  125,  211. 

Lodge,  T.,  31,  111,  136,  169. 

London,  51-59. 

London  Prodigal,  A.,  125,  211. 

Lord  Admiral's  Men,  45,  48. 

Lord  Chamberlain's  Company, 

12,  48. 
Lounsbury,  T.  R.,  130. 
Love's  Labour's  Lost,  10,  33,  77, 

83,  91,  95,  99,  101,   106,  117, 

121,  132,  145-146. 
Love's  Labour's  Wonne,  10,  77, 

175. 
Lover's  Complaint,  A,  70. 


INDEX 


219 


Lucian,  196. 

Lucrece,  Rape  of,  10,  62-63,  67, 

113. 
Lucy,  Sir  T.,  7. 
Ludus  CoventrioB,  see  Hegge. 
Luigi  da  Porto,  144. 
Lydgate,  J.,  33. 

Lyly,  J.,  32,  132,  135,  145-146. 
Lysander,  150. 

Macbeth,  41,  44,  83,  92,   100, 

102,  103,  108,  121,  187-190, 

191,  202. 
Malone,  E.,  129,  184,  207. 
Malvolio,  170. 
Manly,  J.  M.,  34. 
Manningham,  J.,  diary,  76,  171. 
Marina,  197,  198. 
Marlowe,  C,  2,  31-32,  132,  135, 

136,  140,  153,  163. 
Masculine  endings,  80. 
Masque,  33. 
Masque  of  Oberon,  204. 
Mass,  Drama  at,  21. 
Measure  for   Measure,    76,    83, 

109,  112,  121,  176-177. 
Meighen,  124. 
Menaechmi,  110. 
Menander,  20. 
Mennes,  Sir  J.,  3. 
Merchant  of  Venice,  10,  42,  44, 

77,  83,  96,  97,  101,  110,  112, 

117,  120,  132,  133,  169-161. 
Mercutio,  144. 
Meres,  F.,  10,  67  n.,  76-77,  137, 

142,  149,  151,  156,  161,  167, 

169,  171,  175,  179. 
Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton,  211. 
Merry   Wives  of  Windsor,    110, 

117,  118,  120,  124,  163-165. 
Meter,  86-87. 
Middle  Temple,  171. 
Middleton,  T.,  189. 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  10, 

77,    83,    117,    120,    132,    133, 

149-161. 


MUton,  J.,  64,  65. 

Miracle  plays,  23. 

Miranda,  206. 

Mirrour  for  Magistrates,  187. 

Mirrour  of  Martyrs,  179. 

Montaigne,  Essays  of,  207. 

Montemayor,  J.  de,  149. 

Moralities,  26-27. 

More,  Sir  T.,  136.      See  under 

Sir. 
Mountjoy,  C,  13-14. 
Mountjoy,  Mary,  13. 
Mu£h  Ado  About  Nothing,  71, 

83,    101,    110,    121,   165-167, 

169. 
Myrrha,  177. 

Nash,  T.,  8,  31,  136,  182. 
Nashe  T.    19. 

Neilsok,  W.  A.,  129,  136,  205. 
New  Place,  16,  17. 
News  out  of  Purgatorie,  165. 
Nice  Wanton,  27. 
North,  Sir  T.,  108, 158, 179,  192, 
193. 

Oberon,  149. 
Octavia,  190. 
Oldcastle,   Sir  John,   120,   126, 

211. 
Olivia,  170. 
Orator,  The,  161. 
Order  of  the  plays,  83. 
Ordish,  T.  F.,  59. 
Orlando,  168. 
Orlando  Furioso,  167. 
Othello,  100,  101,  109,  117,  124, 

182-186,  191. 
Ovid,  61,  152. 

Pageants,  25. 

Painter,  W.,  110,  148,  176,  195. 

Palace    of  Pleasure,    110,    195. 

See  Painter. 
Palladis  Tamia,  10,  77. 
Pandarus,  172. 


220 


INDEX 


Pandosto,  110,  204. 
Passionate  Pilgrim,  70,  71,  113. 
Patteme  of  Painful  Adventures, 

200. 
Pavier,  T.,  120-121,  124. 
Pavy,  S.,  50. 
Pecorone,  II,  110. 
Peele,  G.,  8,  31,  135. 
Pembroke,  Earl  of,  67. 
Perdita,  199,  203. 
Pericles,  103,  109,  117,  119,  120, 

128,  129,  197-200. 
Petrarch,  64. 
Petruchio,  162. 

Phoenix  and  the  Turtle,  The,  70. 
Pistol,  158,  159. 
Plautus,  10,  11,  29,  110,  148. 
Pliny,  184. 
Plots,  106. 
Plutarch's  Lives,  108-109,  179, 

192,  193,  195. 
Poetaster,  174. 
PoUard,  A.  W.,  120. 
Polonius,  181. 
Pope,  A.,  127,  128. 
Popish  Impostures,  Declaration 

of,  186. 
Portia,  160,  179. 
Posthumus,  200. 
Printing,    Conditions    of,    114- 

116. 
Private  theaters,  45. 
Promos  and  Cassandra,  112,  177. 
Prospero,  199,  206. 
Proteus,  149. 

Puck  (Robin  Goodfellow),  149. 
Puritaine,  The,  125,  211. 
Puritan  Widow,  v.s. 
Puritans,  15. 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe,  150,  152. 

Quartos,  114. 
Quiney,  T.,  17. 

Ralph  Roister  Doister,  29. 
Rare  Triumphs,  etc.,  202. 


Reformation,  52. 
Renaissance,  21,  29. 
Reynolds,  G.  F.,  50. 
Richard,    Duke   of    York,    True 

Tragedy  of,  134.     Same  as  // 

Contention,  q.v. 
Richard  II,  10,  77,  83,  117,  119, 

121,  137,  138-140,  154. 
Richard  III,  10,  32,  77,  83,  91, 

92,  98-99,  101,  111,  117,  119, 

121,  133,  185-136,  137. 
Richardus  Tertius,  136. 
Richard  III,   True  Tragedy  of, 

111,  136. 
Riche,  B.,  171. 
Rime,  81-82,  87-88. 
Roberts,  J.,  120. 
Robertson,  W.,  142. 
Robin  Hood,  28,  167. 
Rome,  21. 

Romeo  and  Giulietia,  144. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  11,  41,  42,  71, 

77,  83,  90,  101,  112,  116,  117- 

119,  121,  122,  131,  132,  143- 

145,  150,  185. 
RomeiLS  and  Juliet,  145. 
Roofs  on  theaters,  46. 
Rosalind,  166. 
Rosalynde,  110,  169,  171, 
Rose  Theater,  37,  136. 
Rowe,  N.,  7,  127. 
Rowley,  W.,  200. 
Run  on  lines,  79  ff. 
Rutland,  Earl  of,  17. 

St.  Paul's,  13,  56. 

Salisbury  Court,  46. 

Saxo  Grammaticus,  182. 

ScheUing,  F.  E.,  34,  50,  135. 

School  of  Abu^e,  161. 

Second  Shepherd's  Play,  25. 

Sejanv^,  12. 

Seneca,  10,  20,  29,  30. 

Sequence,  see  Sonnet. 

Sequence  of  plays,  83. 

Shakespeare  Allusion  Book,  11  n. 


INDEX 


221 


Shakespeare,  Hamnet,  5,  6,  17. 

Shakespeare,  John,  3,  4,  6,  16, 
17. 

Shakespeare,  Judith,  5,  17,  18, 
19. 

Shakespeare,  Richard,  4. 

Shakespeare,  Susanna,  5,  17,  19. 

Shakespeare,  William,  our 
knowledge  of  his  life,  1 ; 
birth,  2  ;  education,  4 ;  mar- 
riage, 5;  deer-stealing,  7; 
life  in  London,  8-16 ;  return 
to  Stratford,  16;  death,  17; 
portraits,  tomb,  will,  18  ;  de- 
scendants, 19 ;  allusions  to, 
8-17;  as  an  actor,  12;  resi- 
dence with  Mount  joy,  13 ; 
income,  15 ;  grant  of  arms  to, 
16 ;  compared  with  Jonson, 
56 ;  and  passim. 

Shakespearean  Tragedy,  195. 

Shallow,  7,  158. 

Shottery,  6. 

Shyiock,  92-93,  159,  160. 

Sidea,  Die  Schone,  207. 

Sidney,  Sir  P.,  Ill,  115,  187. 

Silvayn,  A.,  161. 

Silver  Street,  13. 

Silvia,  149. 

Sims,  v.,  119. 

Sir  Andrew,  170. 

Sly,  162. 

Smethwick,  I.,  121-124. 

Somers,  Sir  G.,  78. 

Sonnets,  63-70,  113. 

Sophocles,  20. 

Southampton,  Earl  of,  10,  67- 
68. 

Spanish  Tragedy,  32,  182. 

Spenser,  E.,  10,  187. 

Stage,  The,  40-45. 

Stage  costumes  and  settings, 
42-44. 

Stage,  Effect  of,  on  drama,  46. 

Stationers'  Register,  75,  114- 
115,  118,  etc. 


Steevens,  G.,  129. 
Stephenson,  H.  T.,  69. 
Strachey,  W.,  207. 
Strange,  Lord,  48,  136. 
Straparola,  110. 
Stratford,  2. 
Supposes,  163. 
Surrey,  Earl  of,  65. 
Swan  Theater,  37. 

Talbot,  133. 

Tamburlaine,  32,  136. 

Taming  of  a  Shrew,   112,   121, 

163. 
Taming  of  the  Shrew,  83,  111, 

161-163. 
Tamora,  141. 
Tarlton,  165. 
Taste,  growth  of,  89-90. 
Taverns,  56-57. 
Tempest,  The,  34,  41,  71,  78,  81,        y 

84,  87,/l03,  121,  136,  205-207.     "^ 
Terence,^29.  *^ 

Thaisa,  198. 
Thames,  54. 
Theater,  The,  37. 
Theaters,  35  ff.,  57-69. 
Theobald,  L.,  128. 
Thomas  More,  Sir,  211. 
Thorpe,  T.,  113. 
Three  Ladies  of  London,  206. 
Timon  (by  Lucian),  195. 
Timon  of  Athens,  109,  112,  121, 

122,  193-195. 
Titania,  149. 
Tito  Andronico,  142. 
Tittus  and  Vespacia,  142. 
Titus  Andronicus,  11,  32,  77,  83, 

117,  119,  123,  132,  141-143. 
Touchstone,  166. 
Towneley  plays,  24,  25. 
Travaile,  History  of,  207. 
Tredici  Piacevole  Notte,  110. 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  117,  122, 

172-174,  195. 
Troilus  and  Criseyde,  109,  174. 


222 


INDEX 


Troye,  RecuyeU  of,  174. 
Twelfth  Night,   6,   76,   83,    101, 

110,  112,  121,  169-171,   172, 

174. 
Twine,  L.,  200. 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  10,  71, 

77,  83,  96,  101,  110,  112,  121, 

148-lJt9. 
Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  211. 
Tyrwhitt,  129. 

UdaU,  N.,  29. 

Unities,  Three  dramatic,  30  n. 

Valentine,  149. 

Venus  and  Adonis,  10,  16,  61, 

63,  67,  113. 
Viola,  170. 
Vortigem,  211. 

Wagner  (Death  of  Siegfried),  23. 
Wakefield,  see  Towneley. 


Wallace,  Prof.  C.  W.,  13,  14,  19. 

Warburton,  128. 

Weak  endings,  81. 

Weever,  J.,  11,  179. 

Westminster,  54. 

Whetstone,  G.,  112,  177. 

White,  R.  G.,  129. 

Wilkins,  G.,  200. 

WHson,  R.,  205. 

Winter's  Tale,  The,  34,  80,  83, 

103,  110,  112,  121,  202-206. 
Wolsey,  208. 
Worcester,  155. 
Wotton,  Sir  H.,  209. 
Wyatt,  Sir  T.,  65. 

Yonge,  B.,  149. 
York  and  Lancaster,  134. 
York  plays,  24. 

Yorkshire  Tragedy,  A.,  120,  126, 
211. 


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